


Breaking Point

by cj2017



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-19
Updated: 2010-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 10:47:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cj2017/pseuds/cj2017
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follows straight on from Know Your Exits and continues to play away from show-canon after Some Must Watch. Action/adventure, hurt/comfort, bit of sex thrown in for good measure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Characters: Whole team with a definite Sarah/Derek bias.
> 
> Rating: M: violence, sex, harsh language, you probably know the drill by now.   
> Thanks, as ever, to Cat who went above and beyond with the beta on this one. I still owe you, m'love: just name your price! A huge thanks to RoxyB for the de-Britishis(z!)ation, mac and cheese, and feedback that knocked my socks off.  
> Disclaimer: No one seems to want these guys at the moment, so I guess they're ours to play with. I have shamelessly pinched/cannibalised a little of the show's dialogue.

The twin blades opened and snapped together repeatedly. Thin winter sunlight danced off the flawless metal as the machine wielded the implement with a skill that belied its inexperience. It was completely focused upon its task, oblivious to the acrid tang of chemicals filling the small room as its hands moved with a considered precision. Little over an hour had passed even though the machine had taken care not to rush. After a final flurry of cuts, the machine was satisfied and took a step back to evaluate its handiwork.

"Hey mom, lookin' good!"

John Connor poked his head around the bathroom door as Sarah reached for the mirror that Cameron was holding out to her.

"You think?" she said softly, with a small smile. Sarah Connor had never been one for vanity, at least not since she had learned that humanity's days were numbered.

"I think it's bitchin'." Cameron sounded extremely pleased with herself as she wiped the remnants of hair dye from the sink.

Sarah raised an eyebrow as John laughed and then kissed her above the fading scar on her forehead. "I think it's bitchin' too. Derek says dinner in five."

She nodded and began to run the shower, waiting until Cameron had left the room before stripping off and stepping beneath the spray. Even though the media had taken their cue from the FBI and unanimously declared that Sarah Connor was dead, there were still murmurs of dissent on the internet. Rumors about conspiracies of silence were heightened by the lack of physical remains and the absence of DNA that would have provided conclusive proof of her demise. Her incarceration and subsequent death had been front page news less than two months ago. A change in her image had seemed sensible.

Sarah ran shampoo through her hair – slightly shorter, straighter and highlighted with auburn – and closed her eyes as the hot water pounded against her shoulders. She wasn't sure that she looked bitchin' but, all things considered, it could have turned out worse.

. . . . .

John picked up a towel and began to dry the dishes Sarah was placing on the rack. It was their routine, the same every night, and every night he would wait for her to ask the same question. He had been working on the chip from the Kaliba T-888 for five weeks. Five weeks of headaches, blurred vision and one minor tantrum that had cost the life of a keyboard. Five weeks of stilted progress and frustration. Five weeks of having to shake his head in answer to her inevitable quiet inquiry.

"You get anything today?" Sarah rinsed and dried her hands, and stood with her back against the kitchen cabinets as John stacked another plate. He had been subdued all the way through dinner and he looked uneasy now when he raised his head. They had kept the same routine for five weeks, but this was the first time that he had nodded. She felt her heart-rate kick up a notch. "Show me."

. . . . .

Cameron was already sitting at John's desk, the two large monitors before her flickering with images and lines of code. She was deciphering them more quickly than Sarah could even read them.

"There were hundreds of these icons," John said, pointing to the second monitor where the images were static and the icons formed an organized system that spread like a family tree from a point of origin.

"I know." Sarah tried not to sound impatient, but he wasn't telling her anything new. "What did you find?"

He hovered the cursor above a symbol, nodding to Cameron, who hit a combination of keys to open the file. An image appeared instantly alongside several columns of text, and Sarah's eyes widened. John pushed his chair away from the desk and looked up at her.

"I found you, mom."

. . . . .

Sarah stared at the image on the computer screen, a sick twist of familiarity stirring in her gut. She couldn't remember the photograph being taken, but she recognized the wire mesh that she was propped up against, and the white shirt she had worn the night Winston had abducted her.

"Mom?"

She jumped when she felt John's hand on her arm. He stood quickly and ushered her into his seat.

"I'm fine," she said, hating the way the break in her voice betrayed her. "Did you read this?"

He shook his head. "No. I didn't know… I wanted you to see it first."

"Thanks." She managed a faint smile.

"Press X-X-Q to scroll down." He looked at Cameron, who stood up without comment and followed him out of the room.

The door clicked shut, the hum of the monitors suddenly loud in the silence. Sarah swallowed hard and started to read.

. . . . .

The file had started out small: sketchy information collated on an unidentified woman who – for reasons unknown – had proved to be a minor irritation by asking questions about business that did not concern her. The shooting of Winston at the desert warehouse had been an inconvenience, but the destruction of the warehouse, which had also been attributed to this woman, had really piqued Kaliba's interest. There was no mention of the thirty-two lives lost, but sixteen tons of coltan had been irreparably damaged in the explosion and that had been enough to stir the hornet's nest. Although Sarah's presence in Charm Acres had not been logged, there was an entry noting the loss of the surveillance tapes, and an instruction had been issued to Winston and another operative to monitor potential targets.

Winston's account of Sarah's abduction was thorough but incomplete. The drugs and the quantities in which they had been administered had been recorded and timed. At 00.32 he had, as per protocol, injected a tracking device into the subject's right breast. He had employed techniques referred to only as SL12 and SI06, with limited success. The drugs dosage had subsequently been increased. At 2.47am he had concluded that the subject had no further potential use, and that her son would likely trace her location via her cellphone. At that point, Winston had notified Control of his intention to contact them for a termination order.

Sarah closed her eyes. The ghost of the text was still visible on her retina as her fingers unconsciously worked over the jagged scar at the base of her left hand. She had heard snatches of that phone call: Winston's voice filtering in through the drugs and the lingering terror of watching John die. It had taken her less than two minutes to get free, to avoid being murdered while the drugs held her in a nightmare. Until now, she had never truly appreciated exactly how close to the wire she had played it.

Her eyes flew open at the soft knock on the door. She expected John, but it was Derek who pushed it open without waiting for her to answer, and she was slightly taken aback by the fact that he had even knocked.

"You okay?" He handed her a mug of coffee, and didn't comment when she wiped beads of sweat from her upper lip.

"I'm fine."

He bit back his response to that, but she acknowledged her own lie with a wry smile and gestured at the screen.

"Winston."

"Right." He pulled a chair over and she leaned back, giving him tacit permission to read while she sipped her coffee and waited for her hands to stop shaking. It was a couple of minutes before he broke the silence.

"He pretend to be your friend for a while? Maybe let you go free?"

She looked up sharply. "How did you know that?"

"SL12," he said, his voice clinical and distant. "The machines developed a code. A play-by-play of torture and interrogation techniques that they learned from Grays, human traitors. I guess they've come full-circle, passed their knowledge on to their human employees."

Sarah shook her head, sickened but not surprised. "SI06. You know that one?"

"No." He cleared his throat, his eyes not quite meeting hers. "I heard a few of them mentioned, people who escaped from the camps, that kind of thing. Not that one though."

"Right." She suspected that there was more to be said, but he didn't seem willing to elaborate. "I never found a PDA on Winston." She had found his cellphone, but the device he had used to forward her image and the reports on his progress had eluded her.

"You were pretty out of it, Sarah."

"Yeah."

"And one-handed."

"I guess."

"I don't think you should feel too bad about conducting a less-than-thorough search of the body." He was smiling and she acknowledged the absurdity of it all by smiling with him.

"Okay then."

"Okay then," he echoed. "How d'you get the next page up?"

. . . . .

The T-888 had stored an archive of its own video footage. In silent horror, Sarah and Derek watched as Tarissa Dyson was executed in her own bed, her murder swiftly followed by those of the security guards she had hired to keep her safe. There was a time lapse, and then images of Cameron appeared, flashes of gunfire temporarily stunning the recording. It snapped back into focus to capture John recoiling and falling as a bullet hit him in the chest.

Derek heard the involuntary noise of distress that Sarah made, even as he searched for the key that would close the footage down. He couldn't find it quickly enough; the file ended with a dizzying series of warped, unidentifiable figures and outlines as the T-888 incurred ballistics damage before Cameron launched it over the Dysons' rear balcony.

Sarah stared at the static filling the screen, her breathing loud and harsh in the small room.

"There aren't any fucking leads on this." She slammed her fist against the desk, sending a pot of pens careering to the floor. "It's just us making one mistake after another."

"One more file." Derek had finally found his way back to the source. "You wanna call it a night?"

"No." She knew what the last file would be. "I want to watch the fucker burn."

. . . . .

The carnage at the jail played out like a First-Person Shooter game, prison guards and police officers flung aside by bullets or the machine's brute strength, its infrared scanning around corners and through smoke to give its opponents no chance whatsoever.

"How the fuck?" Derek stared wide-eyed at the first grainy image that the machine had captured of Sarah. "How the fuck are you even standing?" A loud crack and the machine jerked as its shoulder joint disintegrated and the severed limb flew across the infirmary. Derek blew out a breath, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "Fuck, Connor, that was one hell of a shot!"

She gave him a look, but there was the flicker of a smile on her lips.

He grinned at her and then shrugged. "Hey, credit where credit's due."

The outstretched hand of the machine was creeping into the frame, reaching for Sarah as she struggled to stay upright and defend herself.

"What's it doing?" Sarah was watching a sudden run of numbers and letters at the bottom of the screen.

"It's attempting to strangle you," Derek answered distractedly, transfixed by the footage. His palms were sweating despite the fact that he already knew the outcome.

"No. The code, here." She pointed, drawing his attention. "It's sending the fucking file somewhere. DCN… DCN, what does that mean?" The configuration of letters was appearing at multiple points in the machine's instructions. After a final impact from the Remington, the footage cut off abruptly, leaving only a blank screen and the message: DOWNLOAD SUCCESS.

"Shit." Derek looked across at Sarah. She was rigid with tension as if prepared to flee at the slightest provocation. He didn't touch her and he kept his voice low. "Kaliba know you're alive."

She nodded slowly. "Son of a bitch."

. . . . .

"Mom? Everything okay?" John had come running the instant he had heard Sarah shout his name. Cameron had been so concerned by Sarah's tone that she had come armed.

"Everything's fine," Sarah said hurriedly, and then sighed. "At ease, Cameron."

"Oh." Cameron stopped scanning the room for intruders and lowered her weapon.

Once she was sure the machine wasn't about to blow out a window, Sarah turned to John. "I need you to try to do a search, or whatever." Technical terms had never been her strong suit. "The Triple-8 managed to send this file somewhere and it kept referencing the letters DCN. They mean anything to you?"

John shook his head, glancing across at Derek, who was skimming through reams of print-outs. "I can try to design a program. Get it to collate any relevant references with that designation or a derivative of it." He studied his mother carefully as she nodded in agreement and then gave him a smile that fell far short of her eyes. "What else did you find?"

She didn't answer immediately, and he could see her trying to decide what to tell him.

"Mom, what else did you find?"

She looked up at him, and this time her smile was weary but genuine.

"We may not have much time. They know I'm alive." It wasn't hubris on her part. She knew that John would be Kaliba's priority target now. But the fact that Kaliba wasn't keen to share its knowledge of her survival with any of the authorities strongly implied that they were intending to take care of matters themselves.

"So, we're not just going to sit around and wait for them to make their move, right?" Her son was only seventeen years old and already bearing the scar from his first bullet, but there was no doubt in his voice and he seemed to be daring her to contradict him.

Which was something she had no intention of doing. "Find us a location." She stood, allowing him to take her place. "DCN. That has to mean something."

He nodded absently, his fingers already skipping across the keyboard.

"John?"

"Yeah?" His attention didn't waver from the screens.

"It's your decision to make, but the video files…" Her words trailed away as he finally looked at her. She touched her hand to his shoulder. "It's your decision to make."

He nodded once, grateful for both her warning and her trust. "I'll set this up to run overnight. Get some sleep, mom." He felt her quick kiss on the top of his head before the door clicked shut, and he knew that she would do nothing of the sort.

. . . . .

"Here."

The coffee was strong. Stronger than he knew she liked it, but then he also knew that she had been awake all night.

"Thanks." Sarah took the mug but barely took the time to look at Derek. "You remember that lawyer we were staking out? The one who set up the drone shell company?"

"Not sure I remember the lawyer." He pushed a sliding heap of papers aside and sat on the edge of the bed. "But I vaguely recall being forced off the road while we were on our way back from that particular day trip."

She smiled sardonically. "Funny you should remember that part."

"Yeah, the stakeout kinda got lost somewhere. What with all the bleeding and the shooting and the broken bones." He studied the open file she passed over to him. "What am I looking at?"

"Fourth line down, on the company listing."

"Deacon Research and Development, Wyoming. I don't…"

She gave him a moment, letting him figure it out. When he finally made the link, he sounded anything but convinced. "Deacon. DCN? You think? Bit of a leap, Sarah. It's probably just a coincidence."

"I thought so too, and it still might be. But then there's this."

Derek recognized the print immediately: an enlarged photograph of the basement wall taken by John minutes before he had scrubbed the blood-smears clean and dropped the keys to the house back into Kacey's mailbox. Sarah's finger rested to the left of the image. None of the words on that side of the list had ever resulted in solid leads. Like most of the writing, the word she indicated was scrawled and smudged but legible.

"Deacon." Derek sounded faintly impressed.

She took the print back and studied it again, as if afraid that too little sleep and too much caffeine were conspiring to show her exactly what she wanted to see. But the word was still there, and it was one for which they had never found a connection.

They both looked up at the quiet tap on the open door. Having heard their voices, John was already over the threshold.

"I didn't want to wake…" He eyed the undisturbed bedding, the scattered papers and the deep shadows beneath his mother's eyes. "…Oh, why am I not surprised?"

Sarah couldn't feel guilty; the lack of sleep was making her too impatient. "Did you get anything?"

He nodded and gestured towards his room. "It's easier if I show you."

. . . . .

"Okay, so I ran a trace on any usage of the letters DCN and I also ran it through this." John held up the PDA Cameron had obtained from a Kaliba operative. The man had been assigned to watch their old house shortly after they had fled to the relative safety of the desert. "Seems they all download reports to the same location – designated DCN. The trace on the Triple-8's files wormed its way into areas I hadn't managed to access yet." He clicked the mouse and leaned back as an image loaded. "Recognize him?"

Sarah did, immediately. The footage of the man casually murdering a family was something her memory seemed loath to allow her to forget. "Zoe's father. The missing link from Charm Acres."

"Yep," John confirmed. "We know he was in the same line of work as Winston. When Winston was sent out on security detail at Western Iron and Metal, Zoe's father was ordered to do the same thing here." Another shift of the mouse and a line of text appeared highlighted.

"Deacon Research and Development." Derek whistled through his teeth as Sarah gave him a look that bordered on smug. "Okay," he conceded. "That's definitely more than a coincidence."

. . . . .

They ate together: scrambled eggs and bagels. To the casual observer it would have borne all the hallmarks of a typical family breakfast. But the daughter was nursing a semi-automatic, her chair set at an angle to allow her to monitor the front door. The other three people at the table were barely touching their food. Instead, their attention was focused on a lap-top and the information that it was pulling from the internet. Information about an unremarkable company with an unassuming name, which happened to have established itself miles from anywhere in a location that would see it cut off by snow for at least four months of the year.

Sarah tapped her knife against the table as yet another schematic of the surrounding area loaded up alongside weather warnings and temperature charts that were largely colored in varying shades of blue. Her knife landed on her plate with a clatter, startling John and Derek.

"What?" She glared at them as they stared at her. When embarrassment slowly edged in, she straightened her knife. "I just fucking hate the cold," she muttered by way of explanation, and resisted the urge to launch the knife at Derek as he choked back a laugh.

. . . . .

The small cabin nestled at the foot of an immense range of mountains. Deep snow covered it, pristine and sparkling in the sunlight.

"It's perfect." John clicked on another jpeg. The interior of the cabin was pine-clad and homely, with two bedrooms, an open fire in the living room, and throws arranged prettily on every available piece of furniture. "The front windows give wide-angled views to the north, north-east." Home comforts were the last thing on John's mind.

Derek nodded. "The trees form a good perimeter to the south and west."

"And the owner just leaves the key hidden?" Sarah was skimming the email John had received in response to his cursory enquiry.

"Yeah. There's a coded key-safe. She lives in Colorado. Only visits at the end of a rental period to clean up for the next guests. I guess business is a little slack this year - she seems very interested in our request to rent for three months."

Derek pointed out a line in John's original mail. "Ice-fishing and skiing?"

John shrugged. "What was I supposed to say? We'd like to rent your cabin to use as a base while we attempt to infiltrate and destroy a suspected Skynet stronghold that happens to be located in the area?"

"Fair point," Derek said with a grin. "Think that's where they've taken Danny Dyson?"

"I don't know." Sarah had already considered that possibility. "I guess there's only one way to find out." She nodded to John. "Make the reservation. Your name only. If the owner isn't going to be around, then she doesn't need to know who else is going to be there." She handed him a credit card bearing the name John Gage.

Derek was rereading the email. "What the fuck is it with us and fishing anyway?" He looked up at John. "Do you even know how to fish?" Shaking his head, John raised his hands helplessly, and Derek laughed at the expression on his nephew's face. "Hell, maybe we should learn if we're gonna keep on using it as a cover…"

. . . . .

Sarah placed the bag of C4 carefully down on the table, and pushed it aside to make room for the duffel bag full of weapons that Derek was carrying through.

"These will all need checking, they've been down there some time." He sounded slightly out of breath. It was a long walk to the weapons cache and they had made two round-trips that morning.

"I know." Leaning over John's lap-top, she opened the inbox to check out a new email alert. "You're booked into the Blue Lantern Motel from Thursday."

"Fine." Standing shoulder to shoulder, he read the email with her. "That'll give us a couple of days to travel and a day for me to help set the cabin up."

"Mmhm." She was slightly distracted by his proximity and the fact that John and Cameron were out shopping for cold-weather gear. "Sure you're okay with this?"

"I'm sure. They'd see you coming a mile off, Connor."

He was right. They had decided that they would need someone on the inside, not least to ensure that they didn't inadvertently destroy a perfectly legitimate company. With Derek never having been identified or linked to the Connors, he was the ideal candidate. Sarah knew that it was a long-shot at best; a lone, out-of-work stranger with a military background making discreet enquiries about local employment opportunities. One of Cameron's first tasks upon arrival would be to try to guarantee that a job vacancy at Deacon R&D would be newly available.

Sarah shut the lap-top with a snap and turned to face Derek. Her movement forced him to adjust the angle of the fingers he had been running under her shirt and along the bare skin of her midriff for the last couple of minutes. She barely gave him time to shift before she pushed him backwards against the kitchen wall, nothing shy about her mouth on his as she worked his shirt free from his pants. He grinned into her kiss, and then swore softly when her fingers dipped below his waistband and closed around him.

"Bedroom?" He did well to speak when she was biting his lip.

Her hand still in his pants, she was already moving in that direction. He slammed the door shut behind them, leaning his back on it and watching her as she peeled her shirt and bra off. A couple of strides and she closed the distance between them, her hands warm over the rough scars on his chest, her teeth sharp as she bit the side of his neck. He steered her towards the bed, kicking off his pants and waiting impatiently while she did the same with hers. When he turned her away from him and urged her onto all fours he hesitated, wondering what the fuck he was doing and whether this was the point when she would finally decide to snap his neck.

He needn't have worried. With a stifled moan, she surged back against him when he pushed inside her, her fingers clawing the sheets as she forced him deeper. There was no finesse, nothing gentle in the way they moved. Burying her face in the pillows, she silenced her gasps as he pounded into her and when she finally shuddered around him, she never made a sound. Even though she knew that the cabin was empty, the habits they had fallen into were difficult ones to break.

. . . . .

Sweat cooling on their skin, they lay sprawled across crumpled sheets as Derek traced the scarlet marks his grip had left on Sarah's hip.

"Gonna have bruises, Connor."

She turned her head to see where his fingers were touching, and then raised a hand to the bite on his neck. "Shit. At least mine'll be easy to hide."

He caught her hand and she twisted to face him, pulling him down into a kiss. His tongue stroked gently against hers, his hand dropping low to dip between her thighs and she cried out when his fingers slipped inside her. Taken aback, he paused, looking to her for guidance.

"They'll be gone for hours yet," she said, by way of explanation, but the real answer was there in the way she closed her eyes and hid her face in his neck. He realized then what she was thinking. That this would probably be the last time. That there was little point worrying about their secrets when the odds of them surviving the following weeks were so very poor.


	2. Chapter 2

"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Sarah pushed hard against the truck door but the weight of the snow against it kept it firmly closed.

"Hold on, I'll move out a little." Derek was keeping a straight face, but it was an effort.

It had taken them two days to cross the state. Following a diversion to purchase a new Jeep, they had traveled in pairs. He had hoped that getting Sarah back into a Jeep would make her bettered tempered but, after two days of her scowling at every snowflake and adjusting the heat, he had started to wonder whether John had struck the better deal in terms of companion. Fixing chains to the tires for the final two-hour approach to the cabin had done nothing to enhance Sarah's mood.

"Okay, try that."

This time, the door opened wide enough for her to get out. Standing with her arms folded, she looked up and then turned in a full circle to take in their surroundings.

"Jesus." She let the word out in a rush of breath.

The cabin was half-buried by immense snowdrifts. Only the presence of a sturdy porch ensured that access was actually possible. In the distance, a mountain range formed a horseshoe shape, its jagged peaks towering above a dense forest of ancient firs and pines that spread as far as she could see. When Derek made his way over to stand beside her, she surprised him by smiling.

"You okay?" Without realizing, he did exactly as she had, turning three-sixty degrees in an effort to gain his bearings. When he turned back to her, he knew why she was smiling. It wasn't the barely conceivable beauty of the area, and it certainly wasn't the sub-zero temperatures. She was smiling because – of all the places they had sheltered in recently – this one truly did feel safe.

. . . . .

Ignoring the pain across his back and shoulders, and the way the bitter cold made his face ache, Derek stood on the porch and watched the snow falling. Flakes as big as his hand drifted silently to the ground and he was briefly haunted by the image of his brother: eight years old and building a snowman as fires raged in the city.

"Hey." The touch on his arm made him jump slightly, even though he had heard Sarah approaching. "Gonna freeze out here, or come in for something to eat?"

"I'm coming in." He didn't move, and she came to stand beside him.

"John's just tweaking the tech."

Derek nodded. John had spent the day working on their comms and anything else he thought would help Derek. He had consequently missed out on the joys of setting a perimeter and attempting to map their immediate surroundings during a blizzard.

A thought occurred to Derek and he looked warily at Sarah. "Does that mean you cooked, or the metal?"

She smirked. "I cooked."

"Shit. Maybe I'll freeze out here, then."

Narrowing her eyes at him, she nudged him with her shoulder. "Even I can manage to open a can of stew and slice a loaf of bread."

"That's what I'm getting for my last supper, huh?"

"Yeah. Dinty Moore's finest."

He laughed and leaned into her briefly. "Hell, if I can survive that, Skynet doesn't have a fucking chance."

. . . . .

Derek dropped his duffel bag onto the back seat, closed the truck door and looked back towards the cabin. It took him a minute to find Sarah. She had come down from the porch, and – tucked into a pale gray ski-jacket – she was barely visible as she stared out at the mountains. At the soft crunch of his footsteps, she turned to face him.

"All set?"

"Yeah. I'll let you know as soon as I get to the motel."

"Okay."

Snow still fell steadily, the clouds massing overhead thick with the promise of more.

"Don't come for me," he said into the silence. "If I fuck up. Don't come for me."

Her hood rustled as she shook her head. "I won't."

The fact that she didn't deliberate made him smile. Whatever the hell their relationship was, John's safety would always take precedence, and that was something he would never argue with. Using her glove, she wiped the snow from his face, and then kissed him quickly. Her lips were ice cold, but he felt them curl into a smile, and when she spoke she kept her mouth so close to his that he felt the heat of her words.

"So try not to fuck up."

He laughed quietly and she squeezed his hand. By the time he had started the truck's engine, she had already gone back inside.

. . . . .

"Morning, Kari."

"Morning, darlin'. Coffee?"

Derek nodded, sliding onto a stool at the diner counter and then wrapping his hands around the freshly-poured mug of coffee to warm them.

"Oh hey!" The waitress wiped the already-sparkling counter with a damp cloth and dropped a menu in front of him. "I might know someone looking for a handyman. I hope you don't mind, I passed your name along. Told him you usually hang out here early morning."

"That's great. Thanks."

Derek's enthusiasm wasn't feigned. The tiny town of Whitewater had one bar, one diner, a general store, and a whole lot of snow. His motel television picked up three channels on a good weather day and they hadn't had any of those. The diner on Main Street was the hub of what passed for a town center. It had been easy for him to sell a basic back-story of lost love and unemployment, and then ask Kari to keep her ear to the ground for anyone requiring casual labor. After four days of being holed up with nothing but two tattered paperbacks and the internet for company, any job would provide a welcome diversion.

Kari chattered on as she filled sauce bottles. "His name's Pete Jenkins. Lives on the west edge of town. Friendly like…" she trailed off as if that was a point she wasn't actually certain of now she considered it. "Anyway," she beamed at Derek. "He said he'd call in this morning sometime. So, what you havin'?"

"Sausage and pancakes." He handed the menu back, returned the waitress' smile and tried not to wince when she turned to yell her order at the short-order cook.

"It'll just be a few minutes." As she topped his coffee up, her eyes widened. "Oh, say, did you hear about Tom Ross?"

He shook his head. He had never even heard the name, but apparently this gossip was too good to be restricted by his lack of familiarity with the man involved, and Kari surged on regardless.

"Emmett, the Sheriff, was in here yesterday. Said the brakes on Tom's old truck finally gave out and he skidded into a tree! Can you believe that?"

"No. No, I can't." Derek genuinely was struggling to believe that, because Sarah had already told him that Cameron had tampered with the man's brakes. The only thing he hadn't known was the name of the man whose truck had been sabotaged and the injuries that had been caused.

With Derek's emailed assistance, Sarah had drawn up a rough plan of the houses and ages of the town's residents. She had then worked on probabilities. Within two days, the man Kari had identified as Tom Ross had been observed leaving town in the early morning before being picked up on the outskirts by an unmarked van.

"Here you go, honey." Kari set Derek's plate down but didn't seem keen on pausing for breath. "It's just too awful, Tom broke his arm and his leg. They had to airlift him to the hospital. He's still there now. Oh, almost forgot, here's your knife and fork…" She produced the cutlery with a flourish, using it as a finale to her rendition and leaving him to eat in peace.

Derek poured syrup liberally over his pancake stack. The food at the diner was excellent, but there was something about Sarah's crappy, half-cremated, malformed but always well-intentioned pancakes that he genuinely missed. Not that he would ever admit that to anyone. He swallowed a mouthful to hide his smile and was about to ask Kari for more coffee when a man pulled up a stool next to him and nodded a greeting.

"You Mike?"

Derek nodded in affirmation.

"Pete Jenkins." Zoe's father held out his hand for Derek to shake. "Kari tells me you're looking for work."

. . . . .

The ax split the log cleanly and Derek collected the pieces to add to the stack. It was a large stack. After two days of back-breaking labor, his blisters had blisters and he was beginning to wonder whether their infiltration strategy was actually going to be feasible. The presence of Jenkins confirmed that Kaliba were operating somewhere in the area, but, following Tom's unfortunate accident, the unmarked van had not been seen again. Attempting to track Jenkins, and risk tipping off their only lead, had been delayed until there were no other options remaining. Although she hadn't said as much, Sarah was placing the success of their mission firmly in Derek's hands. Hands that had oozing wounds and absolutely no insight into the location of Kaliba's research facility.

He swung the ax again, hit his target, and watched the wood fly apart.

"Getting the hang of it, huh?"

Derek spun around. Jenkins was leaning on the railing of his porch holding a bottle of beer, already uncapped and half-empty, and proffering a second at Derek. Knocking the ax lightly into the chopping block, Derek walked over to the cabin.

"Thanks." The bottle alone felt wonderful against the raw skin on his palms.

"Almost done." Jenkins gestured at the remaining wood pile. "Quicker than I thought you'd be."

"Yeah." By Derek's calculations he only had another half-day of work left.

"Got anything else to go to?"

"No." Derek kept his voice casual. "Unless Kari's managed to set something up for me."

Jenkins drank the remaining half of his beer, and then nodded. "She said you were ex-military."

"Yeah." Derek used his own beer to ease the sudden dryness in his mouth. Jenkins was staring at him intently, and Derek slowly realized that two days of hard labor had quite possibly acted as a protracted job interview. It would also have given Jenkins plenty of time to dig into his background and credentials. Derek knew that he had nothing to fear in that regard; John had spent days creating a new identity and history, and his work had been flawless.

"Finish up here." Jenkins took a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to Derek. "If you're interested in something more permanent, pick-up's at five a.m." Without waiting for Derek to respond, he went back into his cabin and closed the door.

Derek smoothed the paper out. It was a small-scale map of the town with a black X marking a location on the southern outskirts. The paper was official company stationery bearing the heading Deacon Research & Development. His heart pounding, he put the map into his pocket, took hold of the ax, and forced himself to keep working.

. . . . .

Sarah snapped her cellphone shut and dropped it onto the bed. After days of relative inactivity, Derek's news that things seemed to be working out as they had intended should have come as a relief. They still needed confirmation, of course, but she knew in her gut that she had been right: that the company quietly operating out here in the middle of nowhere had links to Kaliba. She didn't feel relieved. Instead, there was only the same unsettling sensation she had felt in Charm Acres. The tiny prickles of fight-or-flight adrenaline that made her want to arm herself to the teeth and flee with John somewhere so far away she could be certain that no-one would ever find him.

She rubbed a hand across her forehead where it was starting to ache. Two years ago, she had made her son a promise. A promise to change his future and the future of the human race by destroying Skynet. It had been her decision to fight, but she had now led John into remote, unfamiliar and inhospitable terrain with the very real possibility that Skynet was deeply entrenched nearby, and every instinct she had was screaming at her to run.

Outside the wind howled, clattering snow against the windows. Further snow-storms and low cloud were forecast for the week ahead. Sarah shivered despite the warmth of the cabin. She could hear John typing in the adjoining room, and knew that he was working to create a virus they could use to disable the facility's computers and destroy the data they held. She pushed herself to her feet and went in search of Cameron.

. . . . .

Cameron was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by the contents of their medical kit. As she identified each item, she set it aside and made a note documenting its usage and appropriate dosage in a small pad. The machine didn't need the instructions, but there was no guarantee that she would be the one left standing to administer the drugs, and she was nothing if not thorough.

"Not very optimistic, are you?" Sarah had been watching her work for a couple of minutes, surprised by the amount of supplies they had at their disposal.

"No," Cameron answered frankly, without looking up. "Based on your recent history, I have calculated an 80-90% probability that injuries will be incurred before the completion of this mission." She piled six IV bags of saline together and recorded them in impeccable handwriting. "Fractures, bullet wounds and lacerations requiring sutures are the most likely." Narrowing her eyes, she studied Sarah carefully as if attempting to deduce exactly where the most damage would occur. But when she finally did speak, her voice was soft. "You've been hurt a lot."

"Yeah." Sarah couldn't really argue with that.

"Humans are quite breakable."

"We are." Pushing a box of dressings out of the way, Sarah perched on the edge of the sofa and took a deep breath. "I need you to make me a promise."

"John." It wasn't a question.

"John," Sarah confirmed in an undertone. "If…" She sighed and rolled her eyes but persevered with her blatant disregard for their current batting average. "If it all goes to shit, you get him and you get the hell out. I don't care whose orders you've come here to follow. You follow that one to the letter. Understand?"

There was no hesitation. "I understand."

"Be sure that you do." Leaning forward, Sarah took stock of the varied drugs amassed in front of her. "Jesus, Cameron, was there anything you didn't steal from the jail?"

"Oxygen cylinders," Cameron answered immediately. "I thought they would be more useful as an accelerant in the fire." Pausing for a moment, she considered her inventory. "And Pepto-Bismol." She looked up at Sarah, her face deadly serious. "Nothing that pink could possibly be beneficial."

. . . . .

Blowing on his hands to try to warm them, Derek stared out into the darkness and cursed quietly. He had been at the pick-up point early, but it was now twenty minutes past the time he had been given, and he was on the verge of returning to the motel. If this was another one of Jenkins' tests, Derek was resigning himself to failure.

Having made the decision to leave, he was stamping his feet to restore feeling to his toes when the van rounded the corner. It was white and barely visible against the snow as it pulled to a stop in front of him. Blacked-out windows prevented him from identifying the driver. The side-panel soundlessly slid open. Hauling himself on board, Derek took a seat and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. There were no windows, no way to see in or out, and he was the only person in the back. The truck was already moving, smooth and steady on the snow-covered road. With a quick glance at his watch, he closed his eyes and concentrated.

After the machines, after the bombs, Derek and Kyle had survived by learning how to hide. The vast network of tunnels underlying the cities had become home, and those who stayed alive and out of the camps had done so by learning that network. Those who failed to master the complex system of shortcuts, access points and traverses that dipped far below Skynet's radar were rounded up or summarily executed. Consequently, mapping a route, even one without landmarks, was something which Derek excelled at. By timing the turns, noting the length of time traveled in a particular direction and estimating their approximate speed, he was able to memorize the sequence of the journey. It was by no means an exact science, but he knew he would be accurate enough to get Sarah within a few hundred feet of his destination.

He opened his eyes as the truck slowed and came to a complete stop. The driver spoke briefly and then accelerated again, the tires clattering on metal before the road began to descend. Derek felt his pulse speed up. Outside the van he could hear the rush of turbines circulating an artificial atmosphere, and the tires now rumbled on concrete. Whatever Deacon Research and Development was involved with, their complex was large and well-funded, and a substantial section of it had been built underground.

. . . . .

It had not been Pete Jenkins driving, but it was he who slid the van's side door open and nodded as Derek blinked in the sudden glare of artificial light.

"I'll show you around," he said, without preamble. "If you're okay with what we want you to do, I'll get you a copy of your contract."

"Great."

As Jenkins set off walking, Derek fell in beside him. Above them, neon strip lights ran along the ceiling of a concrete tunnel wide enough to accommodate a path marked for pedestrians and a single-track road. The road was deserted, the van having left the minute Derek had stepped out of it.

"So, what exactly is this place?" Derek knew that not asking questions was going to look as suspicious as asking too many. Every fifty feet, a wall-mounted security camera flashed a red light in recognition of their presence and slowly rotated to follow them as they moved past.

"The company works in tech development, mainly." Jenkins swiped a card at a door and pushed it open when the automatic lock blinked green. "Some private contracts, some military." He smiled without humor. "Hell, I only work here, right?"

Derek didn't react outwardly to the mention of military involvement, laughing instead in what he hoped was a yeah I know that feeling way. "Right."

Jenkins had stopped in front of a bank of monitors. Each screen was divided into six, with each section bearing a code and a good quality live-feed from the cameras which were obviously strategically placed within the complex. A separate collection of screens displayed images from the exterior. They gave Derek his first glimpse of security measures he hadn't been privy to on his way in: wire-mesh perimeter fences, a gated and guarded vehicle access point, and, possibly the most effective and simple of deterrents, a seemingly endless wilderness covered in snow.

"You heard about Tom Ross?"

"Yeah," Derek tried not to stare too intently at the monitors. "Kari mentioned he'd had an accident."

"He worked security here. If you want it, his job's yours till he gets back on his feet."

On the third screen from the left, something was moving. It dwarfed the figure standing observing it, and slowly began to rise into the air. Derek tore his gaze away as the main thrusters of the HK prototype swiveled before locking into place. He nodded at Jenkins, keeping his expression blank, his voice betraying nothing but gratitude for the opportunity of employment.

"Yeah," he said. The HK hovered in his peripheral vision. "I want it."

. . . . .

"Anything from Derek?" John watched as his mother quickly flicked between the two browser windows she had open on the laptop. One deft keystroke and a news report was exchanged for a page headed Wilderness Bob's Guide to Surviving in the Snow.

Sarah shook her head in response to John's question, knowing damn well that he hadn't been fooled by her sleight of hand. When he took the mouse and opened the minimized page, she stared out of the window and let him read it.

"Mom…"

"I know."

The report featured the reopening of another wing at the LA County Jail and the laying of a plaque for those who had lost their lives during the T-888's rampage.

"It wasn't your fault."

"I know that," she said, her voice tight.

"Doesn't make it any easier, though, does it?"

She looked up at him and saw her own guilt mirrored on her son's face.

"John."

"You were only there because of me. You got hurt, all those people died because of me."

She gently lifted his fingers from the mouse and shut the report down. He had lost weight and his hand felt thin and frail in hers, but his grip was strong for the few seconds he allowed himself to hold onto her.

"We fight or we die, John," she said, when he pulled away. "And I'd do it all again."

His face lost a little of its tension, but his eyes were hollow, and she wondered how long he'd been having the nightmares for. Even as a child, he had never cried out when the monsters hunted him in his sleep. Being out here, with the monsters practically next door, was obviously taking its toll.

"Staring at this won't make things happen any faster." She forced brightness into her voice and pushed her chair out from under the desk. "You hungry?"

He shrugged, and then acknowledged the effort she was making and managed a smile. "Unless you're cooking…"

"Well, I was thinking less of a meal and more of hot dogs and candy."

This time his smile seemed genuine.

"Now you're talkin'…"

. . . . .

The shifts lasted for twelve hours, with a rotating pattern of days and nights. Derek adjusted to his schedule without difficulty; he could sleep propped up in a bunker with the apocalypse raging around him, so sleeping through the daylight posed him no problems at all. Fitting in with his colleagues was just as straightforward. Jenkins preferred to keep his own counsel, answered any queries in monosyllables, and spent most of his time patrolling the complex, leaving Derek to watch the monitors.

Al Carey was the polar opposite. Over six feet tall with a bellowing laugh, Carey liked to swap tales of drunken debauchery while sitting in front of the monitors and drinking protein shakes. He was more than happy to leave the foot-work to Derek, and after only three shifts Derek was able to map out an accurate plan of the facility's central sections. By reconciling the route he patrolled with the areas screened on the monitors, he knew exactly which of the locked doors housed the flight test spaces, which concealed the manufacture of the machinery, and which contained the research laboratories. He knew that the factory was completely automated and that the only other people who worked at Deacon were scientists and engineers. He knew that there were three of those and that they lived within the facility, and on his fourth shift he walked past one whose face he recognized.

. . . . .

"Danny Dyson is here."

Derek's voice crackled and broke as the phone line strained under the weight of the snow pressing down on it, but Sarah heard his statement clearly enough. She felt as if a load had been lifted from her, finally having confirmation that Danny was alive, that they had a chance to free him and then erase any information that Kaliba might have forced from him.

"Do you know where he's being held? We have to get him out of there."

There was a pause. A silence filled with static and the sound of Derek clicking something uneasily.

"That's just it," he said eventually, and his tone told her that the pause had been of his own making and not due to the weather. "He's not being held."

"So, they leave him free to work? He can't exactly escape to anywhere, can he?" The questions tumbled after each other, as if she was afraid to leave an opportunity for Derek to answer her. She couldn't allow him to contradict her, because the alternative to her scenario was simply unthinkable.

"No." For one brief second she was able to hope that he was agreeing with her, but he shattered that illusion in his next breath. "He's not a prisoner, Sarah."

She closed her eyes slowly, feeling sick. "Are you sure?" She had to ask, but she knew he wouldn't have said anything unless he was absolutely certain of his facts.

"I'm sure."

He told her then. Told her how he had watched Dyson working in the research laboratories. That he would play host to the military personnel who arrived to review their progress and that the other employees seemed to defer to him. Derek described the way that Dyson would stand beside their computers and point out errors to be corrected, or speak, his hands moving in an animated fashion, as they sat and listened and then made adjustments to their work.

"If anything, it looks like he's running the project." Revulsion dripped from Derek's words, echoing Sarah's own reaction. For years they had been aware of the devastation Skynet promised. They had fought and suffered to prevent that promise from becoming a reality. Miles Dyson had sacrificed his own life to destroy the work that would create Skynet. And now Miles' son seemed to be doing his utmost to reverse his father's actions.

"Son of a bitch," Sarah whispered. "Did he let them murder his own fucking mother?"

"I don't know." Derek took a deep breath and she could hear how weary he was. "I hope not."

She didn't need to say anything else. To state that Danny Dyson's life was forfeit was unnecessary.

"Get some sleep," she said.

He agreed quietly and then hung up.

. . . . .

Dropping to her knees, Sarah quickly dug out a body-length trench in the snow and lay on her front in the hollow. She had moved beyond cold, settling somewhere in the region of uncomfortably numb, and she welcomed the shelter from the biting wind that the trench walls provided. At either side of her, John and Cameron had done the same, shielding themselves from view and fixing their eyes straight ahead.

There were two layers to the fence surrounding Deacon Research and Development. Set three feet apart, the barriers of wire mesh rose six feet above the snow, but a visual appraisal by Cameron had confirmed they were not electrified or alarmed. Although it would be awkward and potentially time-consuming to cut through, the perimeter was certainly not impenetrable.

"This entrance would give us the closest access to the computer labs." John traced a finger across the map Derek had emailed to them. "We head there with the virus. You and Derek set the explosives here… and here."

"Which would take out the test spaces, the coltan dump and the factory." Sarah was nodding, trying to gauge the time they would need, their most probable point of exit, and how and where they would be able to regroup.

It had taken them all day to hike approximately a third of the way around the facility. It wasn't that the complex was particularly expansive, but the fence cut a wide perimeter and the snow had hampered their attempts to progress with any kind of speed. There was an obvious strategy, but it wasn't one that John was going to like.

"We'll have to split up," Sarah said, trying to protect the paper in John's hand from the snow that had just started to fall. "You upload the virus and come back through the fence. The truck is only two klicks away from here. You'd be clear before we were finished. Derek and I wire the C4 and use one of their vehicles to exit via their access road."

"I don't know, mom." John's eyes were fixed on the concrete and steel structure now barely visible through the snow and the failing light. "Splitting up…" He shook his head and looked across at her, a thousand what ifs stark on his face.

"Destroying the data is the most important thing, John. That virus has to take priority. Getting rid of the metal and the factory is just a bonus." She folded the map, her eyes cast down to hide the lie in them. She wanted it all gone, every part of Kaliba and Skynet obliterated, and all those who had collaborated with them dead. If there had been any possibility of her and Derek achieving that, then John wouldn't have factored into her plans at all. As that was simply unrealistic, her absolute priority was ensuring that her son got in and out of the complex long before the bullets started to fly.


	3. Chapter 3

Standing on the porch, Sarah watched the sun rise slowly over the peaks. The sky was cloudless and she was freezing cold, a bitter wind making her eyes water and her vision blur. She wiped the tears away and drew in a frigid breath at the sudden clarity of the mountains. This had become something of a ritual, this early morning vigil. She told herself that it was a way of tracking the days as they passed, but more than that it was a way of reassuring herself that even in the harshest of environments life was able to endure. She was always awake early here, but her sleep was the soundest it had been in months.

The tread of Cameron's boots was loud in the stillness and, with some reluctance, Sarah turned away from the mountains to watch the machine stomp snow from her feet.

"I prefer the desert," Cameron stated curtly. "Sand is far easier to patrol in than snow." She looked up at Sarah, her expression miserable. "I sink."

"Yeah, I noticed that yesterday."

Something they had never considered was the ability of a machine to move through deep snow. Although Cameron's endoskeleton was undoubtedly lighter than that of a T-888, her weight had still hampered her progress during their reconnaissance mission.

"On the plus side…" Sarah tried not to smile as Cameron finished with her boots and moved on to brushing her pants off. "It means Derek is probably right about Deacon not having any Triple-8s on staff."

The manufacturing at the plant seemed to be focused on aeronautical designs, with the HK prototype taking center stage. Kaliba already had a T-888 design that they were apparently satisfied with, and Derek had confirmed that none of the automated processes were creating endos.

"They wouldn't be very efficient during the winter," Cameron agreed, tucking her hands beneath her armpits in a strangely human gesture.

Sarah watched her curiously. "Do you actually feel the cold?"

"No," she answered straight away, and then reconsidered. "I sense the external temperature and my systems adjust to function efficiently at extremes of hot or cold." A pause and she raised a hand to her face. "But the skin on my lips is cracked."

This time Sarah couldn't help but smile. Her own lips had been chapped since they had arrived, but Cameron actually sounded offended by this breach of her artificially created and maintained perfection.

"Here." Pressing a lip balm into Cameron's palm, Sarah walked past her and back into the cabin.

With a puzzled look, Cameron uncapped the thin tube and sniffed experimentally at the clear gel. It smelled sweetly of strawberry flavoring. When she rubbed it across her lips, they felt better immediately. She smiled brightly. Humans created and used an awful lot of unnecessary gadgets, but occasionally Cameron had to admit that she was pleasantly surprised by their inventiveness.

. . . . .

Sarah had cleaned, checked and loaded most of the weapons by the time John stumbled bleary-eyed into the kitchen.

"Hey." He blinked in the sunlight. "You sleep at all?"

"Some." Placing the Remington on the table, she began to work a cloth over it. "Enough."

He pulled up a chair beside her and poured himself a cup of coffee. "What time we heading out?"

"Fifteen hundred hours. Gives us two hours to get to the logging track and makes sure it'll be at least dusk when we hit it."

Calling the disused route, strewn with rock and tree-stumps, a track was being quite creative, but they had managed to make adequate progress down it on the previous day. Probably due to Deacon's presence in the area, the forest closest to the plant had been completely abandoned by any local industrial concern, which would enable them to leave the truck well hidden and make the vast majority of their approach under the cover of the dense pines.

"Then all we need is Derek to let us in when we knock."

She pumped the Remington once and smiled at the sound. "Yeah, well, that's the plan…"

. . . . .

"Back in an hour."

Derek acknowledged Jenkins with a nod and leaned back easily in his chair. When the door shut, he tracked Jenkins' progress down the corridor. The man's route was always predictable and took exactly one hour, but Derek knew this was not the time to fall victim to complacency. Still keeping an eye on the monitors, he dropped to his knees and unzipped the small duffel bag he had brought on shift with him. For the first six shifts, the bag had been searched, the driver dutifully emptying out sandwiches, a Thermos and a paperback book. For the last four, the bag had remained untouched and Derek had finally been confident enough to fill the hidden pocket at its base with the extra weight of a Glock, duct tape and a two way radio that was high-spec enough to allow for an encryption facility.

Tucking the Glock into the back of his pants, he pulled his jacket down to cover it and then thumbed the button on the radio.

"One hour. How far out are you?"

When Sarah answered, she sounded breathless and he could hear the effort it was taking to carry heavy bags through the snow. "We'll be there. One hour."

He left the channel open, but this wasn't the time for small-talk. On the monitors, Jenkins swiped his card to gain access to the factory and completed a visual check of the panel controlling the automated system. Satisfied with his findings, he logged his details and then exited the area. Derek knew without looking at his watch that he had another fifty minutes to wait.

. . . . .

For someone who had just been hit on the forehead with a handgun, Jenkins seemed to take an age to drop. The metal opened a neat gash just above his left eyebrow, blood spurting immediately and then settling into a thick flow down his face. He wavered, dazed eyes meeting Derek's, before his legs buckled and he crumpled to the floor.

Wasting no further time, Derek hauled Jenkins onto his front and secured his wrists and ankles together with tape. More tape across his mouth muffled his guttural snoring. A quick search produced a Beretta, a cellphone, and his security card. Derek pocketed the card carefully; Jenkins had authorization to access areas for which Derek had never been given clearance. It took some effort to cram the unconscious man into the chair's space beneath the desk. Derek wiped blood from his hands, panting heavily as he studied the bank of monitors.

The corridors were empty. The men from the research labs were now safely ensconced in their living quarters and Dyson was the only one who ever accessed the facility during the night. It took eight key strokes to disable the security cameras – turning the screens gray and white and freezing the cameras on their mountings. With a final check of his watch, Derek pulled out his Glock, opened the door, and stepped out into the corridor. The entrance he needed to be at was no more than five minutes' walk away.

. . . . .

They didn't need to knock. Exactly one hour after their first contact, Derek swiped his stolen card, opened the door designated D2, and stepped back to allow Sarah, John and Cameron across the threshold.

"Right on time," he murmured, easing one of the duffel bags from Sarah's shoulder. The fact that she let him spoke of how difficult the hike had been.

"Yeah…" Her face was flushed. Snow covered her hood and the droplets of ice gathered on her hairline were melting quickly in the warmer air. "...Well, we do our best." She gave him the briefest of smiles. "All set?"

"All set. The lab's this way."

They followed him down the corridor and Sarah was immediately grateful that every noise they made was muffled somewhat by the dull roar of the air conditioning. Taking point alongside Derek, Cameron scanned the way ahead, searching for signs of body heat and finding nothing. At the door to the research laboratory, Derek hesitated, his card poised in the security reader until Cameron nodded.

"Clear."

The panel flashed green and the lock clicked open. John pushed the door gently to reveal an impressive array of computer equipment and a server tower through which everything was networked.

"Got everything you need?" Sarah was trying not to study her son's face too intently, trying not to let him know that she was memorizing every part of it.

"I got it, mom, we'll be fine."

She pulled him into a hug, felt his arms tighten around her, and, for one fleeting moment, considered just aborting everything and getting out while that was still an option.

"Go," she whispered, choking on the word. "We'll see you back there."

He nodded, already unzipping his bag and moving across to the first desk.

"Cameron." Sarah's tone stopped Cameron in her tracks and the machine turned to face her. "You remember."

"Yes. I remember." Cameron glanced at John. "I promise."

With a nod, Sarah dismissed her and turned to Derek. "Lead the way."

. . . . .

The virus was a devious one. Sitting at the computer, John watched as it wormed its way into program after program, corrupting them from the inside and rendering every piece of data useless before spreading its tendrils ever wider. Images and text flashed across the screen: an endoskeleton with arms and legs outstretched like da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, an official document stating the U.S. Military's interest in fully automated missile systems and fighter jets that required no humans to pilot them. The virus ate into every file. By the time the blueprints appeared, Cameron had abandoned her post by the door and was standing over John's shoulder. The HK drone was easily identifiable, but there were larger designs, fearsome tank-like machines with caterpillar treads and vast arrays of weaponry.

"Skynet has those in the future. They developed them in 2016."

John tore his eyes from the screen and looked up at her. "So what are they doing trying to build them in 2009?"

"If you had the designs and the time-displacement equipment at your disposal, would you wait until 2016?" She made her point sound perfectly reasonable.

"So they're sending the knowledge back through and developing their weapons ready for Judgment Day?"

"Yes. It makes sense." A pause as she gave John the opportunity to catch up. "As soon as Skynet infiltrates the necessary military systems, all their machines are in place, ready for the war."

"Jesus." John watched another blueprint disappear beneath a rush of binary code. "Motherfuckers don't play fair, do they?"

"No." Cameron seemed to consider that concept for the first time. "The motherfuckers don't play fair."

. . . . .

Sarah carefully attached the block of C4 to the barrel bearing the legend flammable in large capital letters. Handing the wiring and the charges to Derek, she rolled a second barrel over and repeated the process.

"Their fault for leaving jet fuel lying around," she said with a shrug, but she smiled at Derek's quiet laugh.

The aerial-HK towered above them, their flashlights glinting off its massive wing-span. This version was at least twice the size of the one they had seen take flight in Charm Acres. A further block of C4 was secured to its central body. She checked her watch quickly. The factory and the test spaces were all wired, leaving only the coltan store outstanding. John had confirmed he had successfully uploaded the virus and that they were making good progress towards the truck, which had allowed Sarah to breathe a little more easily. Hefting her bag over her shoulder, she let Derek lead the way back into the corridor.

. . . . .

The noise was persistent and irritating, and Danny Dyson shut the shower off with a hiss of annoyance. After spending his entire day sitting at a computer, his evening shower was a well-deserved indulgence and about the only luxury his current living quarters had to offer. Which meant that the person phoning him had better have a very good reason for doing so.

"Dyson." He kept his voice neutral; the call was from an outside line.

"Mr. Dyson." The accent on the other end had been made even more pronounced by the man's obvious trepidation. "I'm afraid we have a problem and, well, we have identified yourselves as the source."

"Explain."

The man swallowed audibly and Dyson pictured him running a finger beneath his too-tight collar in the manner beloved of all movie directors as a visual shortcut to indicate extreme stress.

"A virus, Mr. Dyson." A pause, and Dyson closed his eyes, suddenly afraid of what was to follow. "We've lost everything."

"You traced it here?" Dyson's voice was as hard as steel.

"Yes. It attacked your main server. We have reports of data failure from all our subsidiaries."

"Thank you for bringing it to my attention." Dyson was already reaching for clothes. He terminated the connection and began to dress. It was only as an afterthought that he looked up. There was no light on the security camera mounted in the corner of his living room and it didn't swivel to track him as he moved. He pulled a Beretta from his drawer and checked its clip. If the security system had been disabled to allow the computers to be hacked, that gave him two places to start looking.

. . . . .

John sank down into the cold leather seat of the Jeep, grateful to be out of the driving snow and the cruel bite of the wind. The engine started at the second attempt, the wheels spinning wildly on the fresh snow before gaining the necessary traction to start the truck moving. He tried to keep watch as Cameron drove, to make sure that no-one was in pursuit, but his eyes were closing despite his efforts, and at her quiet suggestion that he could sleep he gave in and allowed himself to rest.

On the way back to the truck, the weather had closed in, adding a good hour onto the walk. Hiking through the blizzard had quickly sapped the remainder of John's strength. Cameron had done her best, carrying his bag but stopping short of offering him any actual physical assistance. She had seen the determination etched fiercely across his face, recognized it as the same expression his mother often wore, and sensibly opted simply to reduce her own pace. He was dozing now, a flush of pink on his cheeks and nose from the burn of the wind. She hoped he would stay asleep until they had cleared the forest. If he did, it would take him longer to realize that they had spent hours floundering through the snow, but that at no point had they heard any explosions coming from the facility.

. . . . .

In the end it had been an easy decision. Logic dictated that restoring the security cameras would allow him to pinpoint the location of any intruders. That had come with the added bonus of finding Pete Jenkins, nursing a headache but otherwise unharmed.

Dyson watched the two figures moving efficiently through the coltan store. He swore vehemently when one of them turned and unwittingly allowed the camera to capture her face.

"Sub-basement A," he said, his voice betraying nothing. "As soon as we have them, get Carey in."

. . . . .

The thud was muted, followed by a grunt and the slither of cloth onto concrete. In the middle of cutting a piece of tape, Sarah recognized the pattern of sounds immediately and swapped the knife she was holding for her Glock. All around her, metal towered in neat rows, labeled and sorted by size and weight and providing excellent cover for whoever was now in the aisles with them. Moving to her left, towards the source of the noise, she was painfully aware that the rustle of her thick ski coat and pants might as well have been a bell around her neck. She made no attempt to contact Derek; he had either been the one to fall or he was now doing exactly as she was and would meet her halfway.

The blow came out of nowhere. Pain, sharp and sickening, exploded in the back of her head and she slumped to her knees, the gun dropping from her fingers. Booted feet kicked it away, beyond her reach. The stack of metal she had fallen beside kept her propped up and she leaned heavily against it, her eyes half-lidded, her breathing harsh in the silence. Dimly, she sensed the man move closer, and allowed her shoulders to drop a little more. His breath brushed her cheek, his hand reaching for her, and she caught hold of his wrist, pulling him forwards. Off balance, he slammed into the metal head-first. A fresh wound opened on his forehead and he let out a yell of anger.

"You fucking bitch."

He whipped around with surprising agility and Sarah took the full force of his punch on her right cheek. Blood oozed into her mouth where her teeth had snapped against soft flesh and she spat it onto the floor. The man's boot thumped squarely into the center of her back, forcing her face down onto the concrete.

"Stay the fuck still," a voice hissed directly into her ear. His hands were rough on hers as he hitched her sleeves up and bound her wrists with tape.

Too dazed to offer any further resistance, she fought to keep her feet beneath her when he wadded the hood of her jacket in his fist and used it to pull her up. He dragged her to the door, where Derek lay breathing noisily in an insensible heap and Danny Dyson waited with an inscrutable expression on his face.

Dyson stepped forward to meet her. Without speaking, he back-handed her, catching her on the same swollen side of her face. The grip on her jacket was the only thing that kept her upright. Blood bubbled down her chin and she raised her head slowly, bracing herself for another blow. Taking a step back, Dyson narrowed his eyes as if contemplating what to do next. Sarah wasn't fooled for a second. She knew the man standing behind her was Zoe's father, and she knew that there was only one reason he hadn't killed her and Derek outright.

"Take them to Sub C." Dyson might have looked like his father but his voice held none of Miles' humility or warmth. "Carey's on his way."

. . . . .

"Strip."

Rubbing her newly-freed wrists, Sarah stared incredulously at Jenkins.

"No."

"Strip him. Then yourself. The only other option is me doing it for you." His teeth flashed white in the dim light as he grinned.

Sub-basement C was an empty storage room. The reason it was empty was the freezing damp patches which spread up from the floor and which had never been cost-effective to repair. Even fully-dressed, Sarah could feel the chill seeping in through the concrete to numb her toes.

Derek moaned when she unzipped his jacket, his eyes opening a crack, but he made no attempt either to resist or to help her as she undressed him. When he was left in only his jeans and a T-shirt, Jenkins ordered her to stop.

"Now you."

She gave him a look that would have scared him had he not been pointing a gun directly at her head. Without allowing him the satisfaction of seeing her hesitate, she took off her jacket, waterproof trousers, boots, and the two thick sweaters that had only just been enough to keep her warm. Goosebumps rose immediately on her bare arms and she hugged them across her chest, trying to press the thin cotton of her tank top closer to herself.

"Anything else?" Her voice was as cold as the room.

He looked her up and down, moving the flashlight slowly over the length of her body. He shook his head.

"Naw, that'll do." A rattle as he held up a pair of handcuffs. "Turn around." He secured them tightly around her wrists before moving over to Derek. "The fuck is this?" He was staring at the barcode tattoo on Derek's forearm.

Sarah shrugged. "Fuck if I know," she said in a fair imitation of Jenkins' grammar and inflection.

He traced the barcode with his finger, and then pulled out a PDA and took a photograph of the tattoo.

"Not gonna make this easy, are you?" After handcuffing Derek and checking the quality of the image, he stood up.

"I hope not." She smiled pleasantly.

Bundling their clothes together, he tucked them under one arm, his gun never wavering. "You got balls, lady, I'll give you that."

The door slammed shut behind him.

. . . . .

"Derek?" He didn't answer her. Ignoring the freezing moisture seeping in through her combat pants, Sarah persevered with her struggle to bring her cuffed hands in front of herself. It always hurt, the metal carving into her wrists as she strained, but she had had a lot of opportunities to perfect her technique and it didn't take her long. "Reese?"

She heard him cough quietly as she crossed the short distance between them and dropped to her knees at his side.

"Sarah?" Her name was more of a groan than anything recognizable as speech.

"Lie still." She put her hand on his shoulder, her fingers already stiff and white with the cold. "You've been out a while."

"Didn't go so well, huh?" He was trying to look around himself, only now beginning to appreciate the gravity of their situation.

"No. It didn't go so well."

"John?"

"He's not here." She was certain of that for one obvious reason: "We're still alive."

Derek followed her logic without difficulty. "Yeah." His eyes closed. "Thank fuck for that," he said emphatically, and felt the gentle pressure of her hand on his arm. She knew his gratitude was for her son's relative safety and not the fact that they had been given a temporary stay of execution.

"Where did he hit you?" Her hand moved to his head, searching over his scalp until she found a large swelling. Nothing shifted as she probed the area, but he grunted in pain and the warmth of his blood covered her fingertips.

"Your bedside manner sucks, Connor," he muttered, without any real malice.

"Good thing you have such a thick head." She was using her palm to put pressure on the bleeding.

He looked up at her, but the lighting and the angle was all wrong and he couldn't see her face. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Would you tell me if you weren't?"

She laughed quietly. "No, probably not." A pause as she shifted her position slightly. "Couple of bruises, that's all."

"Jenkins?"

"Jenkins and Dyson." He made a noise of surprise. "Yeah, seems Danny Dyson may be holding a grudge and John uploading a virus into his research probably hasn't helped much."

"That boy of yours will go far."

He sensed rather than saw her smile. "I think so."

They sat without speaking for a while and she thought he had dozed off when he suddenly shivered.

"Fucking freezing in here."

"I know." She could feel the fine tremors coursing through him, and tried to think what to do for the best. She had never had much medical training, all of her knowledge being empirical, but she didn't need to be an expert to know that hypothermia and a concussion would be a dangerous combination. "I guess they figure we're less likely to make a run for it now they've taken most of our clothes. Can you sit up?"

With his hands bound behind him, he struggled to gain any leverage, but she gripped beneath his arms to lift him and together they managed to push to the wall.

"Here, go forward a little." Easing herself behind him, she looped her handcuffed wrists over his chest and encouraged him to rest back against her. "Better?"

"Yeah." He was taking deep, slow breaths, trying to stop himself from vomiting.

She had no way to gauge the time, Jenkins having taken her watch from her, but eventually their shared heat worked to chase away a little of the cold.

"You sleep if you want to," she whispered, her mouth close to his ear.

He shook his head, but his breathing gradually evened out. She tightened her arms around him. Outside the basement door, she could hear the occasional bang or metallic clank as heavy objects were moved. She wondered what Dyson's contingency plans were and whether they would involve the wholesale destruction that had been favored at the desert warehouse. Her head ached dully but she forced herself to keep her eyes open. It wouldn't be long before they came for them.


	4. Chapter 4

Dyson didn't look up as Jenkins entered the computer lab.

"That bitch has set us back months." Error message after error message flashed onto the screen as he tried in vain to access the systems. "If not years."

Jenkins stepped a little closer but, sensing the other man's mood, not too close. "They had nothing with them, nothing in their bags. No disk, no tech, nothing they could've uploaded the virus from. Someone else must have been with them."

Dyson nodded distractedly. "Her son." He had already guessed the way Connor's plan had worked. "Which means he's still close."

"Wallace and Brooks are ready to go." Having been rudely awakened, Deacon's second computer scientist and its engineer were waiting in their rooms. With some reluctance, Jenkins continued. "Carey just got in, says the access road is barely passable and there's no way anything larger than an SUV will get out."

"Dammit." Dyson slammed his hand down on the keyboard. "We can't move the prototypes or the metal?"

"No." Jenkins shifted uncomfortably, not at all appreciating his role as messenger. "Not until the weather breaks."

"Forecast?"

"Five days to a week."

When Dyson finally did look up from the computer, his expression was sanguine. "Well, that should give you plenty of time, then."

Jenkins smiled without humor. "Yes, Mr Dyson, it should." He turned to leave, considering himself dismissed, and then he remembered the actual reason he had come to the lab. "Connor's associate's got some strange ink on his arm." He handed Dyson the PDA with the image already loaded. "Definitely not prison ink."

"I'll take your word for that." His brow furrowed, Dyson studied the tattoo.

The PDAs had not been affected by the virus; he selected an email address and attached the image to a new message. "Stay away from Connor for now." He typed a brief query and then sent the mail. "I want a response to this first."

Jenkins nodded once and pulled the door closed as he left. Setting the PDA down on the desk, Dyson began to pack disks and files into a crate.

. . . . .

The wind howled around the cabin, whipping the mist into shapes that curled and danced and blotted everything out. When the snow started to fall it made visibility even worse, but Cameron was able to adjust the range of her scan, and the weather was only an inconvenience, not an insurmountable problem. Standing on the porch, she could sense someone watching her and knew John was still sitting in the window. She knew that he couldn't see a thing through the white-out, but he had realized now that something had gone wrong and he continued to look out for his mother regardless.

. . . . .

The PDA bleeped twice, a blue light flashing briefly on its display as an email was received. Setting his crate aside, Dyson opened the mail. The body of the message was blank, the sender not prone to wasting time with conventional displays of politeness, but there was a two-megabyte file attached to it.

The image loaded first: a waist-upwards shot of the man who was currently lying semi-conscious in Sub-basement C. The man didn't appear to have been in a much better state when this photograph had been taken. He stared without seeing at the lens, his posture exhausted, the expression in his eyes utterly hopeless. The complete dossier had been copied from the chip of the T-888 assigned to exterminate the man and his team. It was standard procedure for machines traveling back through the Time Displacement Equipment, and an efficient way of gathering intelligence. The technique had been allowing Kaliba to race ahead of its schedule until Connor's latest and horrendously successful act of sabotage.

The text identified the man as Derek Reese, first lieutenant, 132nd SOC. A Resistance member who had apparently been sent back to assist Sarah Connor in her misguided efforts to prevent the inevitable. Dyson shook his head, wondering why some people constantly failed to grasp the simplest of facts: that the machines would win and that the only humans who would be left standing and not scrabbling around in the rubble like rats were those who stepped forward and accepted that the larger part of humanity was doomed.

Scrolling through the information, Dyson skimmed the mission reports and the scant details that were known about Reese's family. Towards the bottom of the second page, something caught his eye. The short paragraph explained exactly why the man staring out of the photograph bore that terrible look on his face and, for a second, Dyson felt something that might have been pity.

"Poor bastard," he said quietly. Shutting the file down, he thumbed the button on his radio. "Find Carey and meet me at Sub C."

. . . . .

They entered in a rush of light and noise, overhead neons bright and blinding, the heavy door swinging back and hitting the wall with a sudden crash.

Closing her eyes against the glare, Sarah felt the jerk as Derek was pulled from her arms before a large hand clamped around her biceps and forced her to stand. Using her hands to shield her eyes, she squinted as Dyson and Jenkins came slowly into focus. She guessed that the man behind her was Carey. Derek still lay on the floor, but he was conscious and watching her.

"Make this easy, Sarah," Dyson said pleasantly. "We know your son is nearby. Tell us where he is and I promise you can die quickly."

She raised her head to meet Dyson's gaze and was surprised by the naïveté she saw there. He genuinely seemed to believe that he was making her an acceptable offer. A notion she was only too willing to disabuse him of.

"Go to hell."

Dyson stepped back and Jenkins struck her once, knocking her head back against Carey's chest. Before she could recover, he hit her again, his fist digging into her abdomen and forcing the air from her. She bent low, gasping for breath, and struggling not to throw up. She dimly heard Derek say her name and the dull sound of a boot kicking into him. Blood was pouring from her nose, and when she finally managed to straighten, Dyson's face was screwed up in distaste.

"What's the matter, Danny?" She was still panting and she wiped her hand across her face, blood smearing onto her palm. "Squeamish?"

He shook his head, his voice disinterested. "Bored. They pay me to create, not get involved in the more…" He paused, searching for a suitable euphemism, "…unpleasant aspects of the business."

"So when they murdered your mother you were too busy working for them to stop them?" Sarah spat the words out, crimson spraying onto the concrete and splattering Dyson's boots. Provoking the man who ostensibly held their lives in his hands was probably ill-advised, but she was desperate to find a chink in his armor that she could exploit.

He was glaring at her, a flush of rage coloring his dark skin.

"You murdered my mother! Just like you murdered my father!"

She was already shaking her head. "No," she said softly. "No, I didn't get there quickly enough to save her. Kaliba had already killed her." A thought occurred to her, something so simple she almost laughed. "You never saw the file, did you?"

It stopped Dyson in his tracks. "What file?"

That was answer enough for her, and the quick exchange of glances between Jenkins and Carey explained exactly who had intercepted the T-888's upload.

"The recording the machine made as it shot your mother in her own bedroom." The sorrow in Sarah's voice was genuine.

His eyes wide with shock, Dyson turned away from her, his hand running back and forth over his close-cropped hair.

"You're lying." A quiver in his words betrayed his uncertainty and for a second she dared to hope that she might have reached him.

"The machine sent the file here. That's how we found you. Which means that someone didn't want you to see it."

Carey's grip on her upper arm had tightened to the point where his fingers were grinding her flesh against bone. She knew he was going to exert a price for this later. Whether there was to be a later rested entirely in Dyson's hands.

Dyson was sweating, his skin slick and sickly-looking in the harsh neon light. He looked lost, and she was reminded then of exactly how young he was and how much had been taken from him. All of a sudden, he seemed to reach a decision and faced her again, hatred blazing in his eyes.

"I don't believe you," he declared with the simple clarity of a child. He nodded to Jenkins, who took hold of Derek and began to drag him towards the door. "I don't think you'll tell us anything," Dyson said lightly, "Although I'll certainly let them try to prove me wrong. Lieutenant Reese, on the other hand," he smiled with satisfaction when she started at his use of Derek's name and rank, "He broke once. Who's to say that he won't break again?"

Sarah stared at him. She had no idea what he was referring to and Derek was already gone.

"What the hell happened to you, Danny?"

Dyson studied her thoughtfully, considering his answer.

"You happened to me, Sarah," he finally said. When he closed the door behind him, she was plunged back into the dark.

. . . . .

A cold blast of wind entered the cabin with Cameron, and John tucked his knees closer to his chest.

"They're not coming, are they?" He glanced out of the window again as if afraid he would miss something the instant he looked away.

"No." Cameron propped the M4A1 against the sofa; its scope had a thin film of ice over the lens. "We need to leave."

"What?" The shock of her statement pulled him away from the window and he stood slowly. "No fucking way are we going anywhere."

"They're not coming." She was already dragging duffel bags out of the closet. She looked up when John put his hand on her arm, stilling her movement.

"Then we give them longer," he said, his tone intended to put an end to any debate. "We can't go anywhere in this weather and no one will be able to find us. So we wait."

Cameron stopped herself from pointing out the obvious, that Sarah and Derek would be in real trouble if they were traveling and even worse trouble if they weren't. There was no happy ending as far as she could see.

"We wait until there's a weather window. If we don't hear from them, we leave." She picked up the newly-thawed assault rifle and strode over to the door. "I made your mother a promise, John."

Ignoring the protest he was about to voice, she walked back out onto the porch, pulled the door shut and recommenced her scan of the perimeter.

. . . . .

"You can make this stop. Tell me where John Connor is."

"Fuck. You." Derek gave his standard response and closed his eyes. It made no difference - they had blindfolded him as soon as they had bound him to the chair - but for some reason he preferred the darkness to be of his own making.

Nothing.

Silence.

Not even the sound of Jenkins breathing. No movement or swish of air as a weapon was readied.

In the forty seconds before the wooden bat cracked into his chest and splintered another rib, Derek remembered bitterly that it was the anticipation of pain that made torture so very effective.

. . . . .

Even with her knees held closely to her chest, Sarah couldn't stop herself from shivering. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably and she had long ago lost all sensation in her hands and feet. Her tongue felt thick in her dry mouth. All she could taste was blood. In the corner, fetid water dripped, and she wondered whether Carey's technique as a torturer would be as effective as the torment of that sound coupled with her thirst.

She heard the footsteps before the door swung open, and shielded her eyes in readiness. The silhouette of Jenkins stopped in the doorway and dropped Derek's limp form onto the floor.

"We don't need you," Jenkins said casually. "He gave us everything."

She blinked once, unable to breathe, unable to respond. She heard Jenkins whistling softly as he pulled the door closed, but she still couldn't move.

He's lying.

The words repeated silently in her head. They drowned out the other voice, the niggling one reminding her of Dyson's damning phrase: who's to say that he won't break again?

"No." She barely realized that she had spoken out loud as she pulled herself to her feet and hurried over to Derek. "No, no, no. Derek?"

He hadn't moved since Jenkins had returned him, and he didn't react to her voice. Even in the darkness, she could see the pulped, bloody ruin of his face. When he breathed, the air wheezed in and out, his chest rising and falling unevenly.

"Jesus."

The cold forgotten, she stripped her tank top off until it caught on the restraints at her wrists. Folding the cloth up, she used it to wipe the worst of the mess away. She took care to clean the blood from his nose and mouth and was gratified when his breathing became slightly easier. With a grimace, she pulled her soaked top back on.

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, Reese," she muttered, lifting his T-shirt up and laying her hand over his chest. There were broken ribs on his left side that shifted beneath her fingers and were obviously affecting his breathing. She had a vague recollection of Derek turning John onto the side of his bullet wound to allow his healthy lung to work more efficiently. It seemed like a good idea and she strained to shift him, before settling his head in her lap. There was nothing more that she could do until he woke.

Sitting and waiting was not something that Sarah was good at. Even in Pescadero there had always been a plan, or a goal, or a routine of exercises to take her mind off the fact that she was trapped, that things were beyond her control. This was different, and the unfamiliar sense of helplessness made the walls seem to close in on her. Terrified for her son and completely out of options, she fought to slow her breathing. It took a couple of minutes before the suffocating sensation of panic abated, easing as suddenly as it had gripped her. She sat up straighter and welcomed the freezing draft that cleared her head and made her eyes tear. As long as they were still alive, they had a chance. As if on cue, she felt Derek stir, and the eye that wasn't swollen shut opened a crack and struggled to focus on her.

"Hey."

"Hey." There was no moisture in his mouth and the word was barely more than a croak. He licked his lips, wincing when they split and bled, but he needed to be able to speak. "I…" He shook his head in utter frustration, tears spilling down his cheeks.

"It's okay, Derek. Just lie still." Her hand was gentle as she brushed his face dry.

"Didn't…" Another pause as he sucked in an agonized breath; he had forgotten how much rib fractures hurt. "Didn't tell them." The words finally out, he sagged back against her. He heard her sob once before the darkness rushed in again.

. . . . .

Derek had no way of knowing when they had taken her. He had woken suddenly, unable to move and racked with pain. Sarah was already gone.

"Shit."

He laid his head against the concrete, took as deep a breath as he could bear and pushed himself up into a sitting position. Moving hurt. It hurt more than he had thought possible, and for a minute he could do nothing but sit with his eyes screwed shut and swear incoherently. When he had exhausted his repertoire of filthy words, he felt a little clearer. He looked around in an effort to take stock of their impromptu holding cell. It seemed to be completely empty. There was no convenient debris to fashion into a weapon, there was nothing at all, which meant they would have to fight their way out, and that was something he couldn't do with his hands cuffed behind him. Biting down hard on his lip, Derek forced himself to move again.

. . . . .

Sarah had lost count. At first, she had kept track of how many times Carey had reworded the same question, but both men were there now and the numbers had stopped being an effective distraction. Carey was losing his patience. Sarah was on her knees, her hands tied high on a piece of pipe. She shifted slightly, leaning forward on her bound wrists and resting her head on her arms. No sooner had she done that than a hand knotted in her hair and forced her back into an upright position.

"You had enough, Sarah?"

Carey's voice had a satisfyingly nasal quality to it. She had broken his nose with her elbow when he had first dragged her into the room.

She refused to dignify him with a response, gritting her teeth as he raised the baton. He aimed for one of the incisions he had made earlier, and the blunt force of the rubber baton reopened the wound, but she didn't react as blood began to trickle down her back. It wasn't the first time he had done it; his methods were becoming cruder as he grew more frustrated.

"Still got nothing to say?" He sounded out of breath, and sweat was beading on the end of his swollen nose. He swiped a clumsy hand at it, and then roared with anger at the pain he caused by disturbing the fracture. He took it out on Sarah; when Jenkins finally pulled him away, she hung limply by her wrists, clinging onto consciousness.

From what seemed like a great distance, she heard footsteps enter the room. There was a quick exchange between the three men, with Carey still sounding breathless but marginally more composed. The footsteps approached her, a rustle of thick outdoor clothing as the person crouched low. A warm hand tipped her chin. When she met his eyes, Danny Dyson flinched instinctively before he managed to cover his momentary lapse with a cold smile. He leaned so close to her that she could smell the fresh toothpaste on his breath.

"When we find John, I'll tell him you died well."

She raised an eyebrow at him, a lazy smile twitching the corner of her lips, but she didn't answer. She hadn't said a word in all the hours Carey had been working on her, and she wasn't about to change that now.

Dyson dropped his hand. He wiped her sweat and blood onto a handkerchief with a look of disgust. Standing up, he turned his back on her and spoke to the two men.

"Get what you can. Wallace and Brooks are waiting for me. When you're finished and the metal's out, use the supplies in D6 and let me know when you're clear."

Carey grunted in affirmation and patted the baton onto his palm. "I think I got a second wind, Mr. Dyson," he announced cheerfully.

Sarah heard Dyson laugh and the door click shut behind him. She tried not to tense when the tread of Carey's boots grew closer. Taking a deep breath, she wrapped her fingers around the metal pipe they had bound her to, and closed her eyes.

. . . . .

With one hand gripping each of Sarah's arms, the two men forced her to walk back to the basement, stopping once to allow her to vomit. The door shut as soon as they had pushed her inside, and she immediately dropped to her knees. She could hear Derek scrambling to reach her, but she couldn't do a thing to reassure him while she was trying so hard just to breathe.

"Sarah?"

"I'm fine." She eventually managed to give her standard answer, but she was panting, her eyes screwed shut. The pain wouldn't stop. "Jesus. Son of a bitch."

Derek's fingers were freezing cold as he lifted her face to him. "Where?"

She shook her head, and then thought better of it and gasped out her answer, "My feet."

There was a pause while he moved slowly to look. She heard the quiet curse he uttered.

"They made you walk?"

"Yes." She was swaying slightly, sweat-slicked and pale.

"Can you get over to the wall?"

"Think so."

The closest one was right by the door. He waited until she was leaning back against it, still fighting to keep any pressure from the soles of her feet.

"You need to rest them down, Sarah."

"No."

"It'll help."

"I can't."

He swallowed hard. He knew what that admission had just cost her, but he also knew that he was right. "The cold will take the swelling down. Like an ice pack."

"Can't." The word came out in a sob, but she could feel the chill of the wall beginning to ease the burning across her back, and when he carefully moved her legs to set her feet flush against the concrete she didn't try to stop him.

Tears streamed down her face and she closed her eyes. Her hands, now bound with rope, were in front of her, his fingers wrapped around hers, his body pressed close to her side. The silence was broken only by his rasping cough and the chatter of her teeth.

It was a long while before he felt her relax slightly.

"Better?"

"Yeah. A little. You okay?" She could hear him wheezing and his chest sounded wet when he breathed.

"Fine. It's just the cold."

"Deep breathing and coughing." He couldn't see her, but he could tell by her voice that she was smiling. "That's what you always tell me when I get my ribs messed up."

"Yeah, and you tell me to fuck off."

"That's because it hurts. But I do it anyway."

He obligingly took a deep breath, which started him coughing.

She laughed quietly. "See? It works."

He smiled with her, but when he turned to face her, any trace of humor had vanished. "Gotta get out of here, Sarah."

"I know." They both knew they were unlikely to survive a second interrogation.

"Next time they come, we need to be ready."

"The only chance we have is the element of surprise." She was looking up at the door, attempting to gauge a plan of attack.

He nodded. "I did my best to look half-dead when they came in."

"You were very convincing."

"Thanks."

"I'm guessing it's pretty late. They might leave us for a while."

"You want me to take first watch? I slept already."

"Does being unconscious count as sleeping?" She stifled a yawn and moaned as something in her back split open and bled.

Looping his hands over her head, he waited until she found a comfortable position. "I'll wake you in an hour."

"Mmhm." She was already drowsing, half exhausted, half in shock. She could feel Derek's fingers measuring the pulse at her wrist.

"Lie down a little more." Apparently he wasn't happy with what he had counted.

She did as he asked, closing her eyes and falling asleep to the stink of blood and mold, and the gentle shake of Derek's legs as he coughed.

. . . . .

"He told you what happened, didn't he? That I got those people killed?" Derek's voice drifted up out of the darkness, slurred by sleep and the swelling to his face. He had heard Dyson calling him by his rank, and if they knew that information then it made sense that they would have the rest.

Sarah shook her head, even though he couldn't see her. "No, he didn't tell me that. He told me just enough to make me doubt you." When she put her hand on his cheek, his skin felt feverish beneath her palm. She didn't need him to elaborate. Not here, not now. "Derek, whatever happened to you before… It's not my business." She heard his breath hitch in his throat. "You don't have to explain."

He slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, turning in the circle of her arms to try to face her. "I wouldn't betray John," he said, making the effort to speak clearly. "I'd die first."

She smiled with recognition. Those words, that phrase, had been her own mantra when Winston had held her, but she had never told Derek that. He relaxed slightly into her hold and she thought he had gone back to sleep. She was watching the door again when he spoke.

"It was the last time I saw Kyle. We were out on a patrol when the HK hit us. We got separated. I woke up in a wagon with a group of prisoners."

"Kyle wasn't there?"

"No. They chained us to the floor of a building. Left us there. I don't know how long. Burned that tattoo on with a laser. When people died, the machines dragged them away like they were garbage."

He coughed suddenly. A single cough turned into a harsh, racking bout that left him struggling for air. She helped him sit up straighter, but it was a while before he could speak again. When he did, his voice was hoarse.

"They took us one by one. Down to the basement, and the music got clearer."

"Music?" Sarah put her hand to his forehead, wondering how delirious he was.

"Classical music. You could hear it playing, the same piece over and over. When the machine pushed me inside, she was waiting."

"Who?" She had a nasty feeling that she already knew the answer.

"Cameron." He shuddered and his voice dropped to a whisper. "But it wasn't her, and I couldn't understand why she was there, why she didn't help me."

His words made no sense to Sarah at first, but the pieces slowly slipped into place, and she understood then why his breathing was suddenly heavier and a cold sweat drenched him.

"You knew her before. Before she was a machine."

He ran a hand over his face, wiping it dry. "Her name was Allison. Allison Young. She was in our squad. One day she just disappeared. We searched for her for weeks."

"SL12," Sarah murmured with sudden realization as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. "Winston's technique. She used it on you. You didn't know she was a machine."

He shook his head. "She promised she would go for help, if I told her where our bunker was. I believed her. She used so many drugs, Sarah. I thought it was her. I couldn't tell the difference anymore. I gave her the location."

"Derek, you couldn't…"

He cut her off, desperate to get the rest of it out now that he was so close to the end. "It was just a fucking game to them. They left four of us alive. They let us go, but they'd already hit the bunker, and Kyle was gone."

"You didn't know that John had sent him through."

"No. My squad leader told me that Kyle was alive, though. It should've been enough just to know that I hadn't gotten him killed."

"But it wasn't."

"No, it wasn't," he admitted. "I lost my brother anyway, and even though none of the others said anything, they knew the bunker was my fault." He swallowed hard, feeling sick and struggling to find the words to explain. "It's like… it's not enough for the machines to slaughter us or force us into the camps. They have to take everything."

"It wasn't your fault, Derek." She suppressed a shudder. She remembered the dreadful panic that had consumed her towards the end of her own abduction, when the combination of the drugs, Winston's persistent questioning and her utter disorientation had brought her so close to breaking.

He didn't challenge her. He was too weary to argue, exhausted by the effort of speaking for so long and by the awful burden of his guilt. Guilt that he had hoped to alleviate by stopping Andy Goode and resetting the clock. But he had fucked that up too, and Skynet continued to force its roots ever deeper.

"Do you think Cameron remembers?" Sarah asked quietly, not at all sure that she wanted to hear his answer.

"I don't know. I hope not. But I saw her dance once, when she'd been to the ballet class, and it was the same music, the piece from the basement."

"Jesus."

"Maybe some memories filter through. Some of the things she says, the way she says them, she could be Allison. It's just," he hesitated, searching for the explanation. "The eyes are all wrong. There's nothing of Allison there."

He coughed again, a prolonged attack that stole his breath and what little remained of his strength. The rattle of fluid in his lungs sounded terrible in the darkness.

Sarah stared at the thin strip of light that was visible beneath the door. One question repeated on a constant loop in her head: how are we going to fight them?


	5. Chapter 5

"I don't need them. No. Keep them on."

They were already off and in his hands.

"Here, they'll help."

Sarah stared at the damp, dirty pair of thick, woolen socks Derek was holding out to her and started to laugh hopelessly.

"What the fuck are we doing, Derek?"

He shrugged, still proffering his clothing.

"Escaping?"

Shaking her head at his blind optimism, she took hold of the socks and slid them over her battered feet.

"Shit." Both feet were badly swollen, and even the loose-fitting socks felt like a vice clamping around them. But she silently conceded the point; the material would offer some protection from the rough concrete.

"Can you stand?"

"Yes," she said immediately. Because there was no other option. Slowly, she pushed herself up the wall and stood with her back against it. The pain was formidable; she took a couple of deep, deliberate breaths. Pain can be controlled, Kyle Reese had told her, and he had been right. Seventeen years and countless scars later, Sarah Connor had perfected the art of disconnecting.

"Sarah?"

"I'm okay." She looked at the door. Approximately fifteen minutes ago, they had started to hear voices and sounds of activity out in the corridor. Clubbing her bound hands together, she stepped into the shadows and waited.

. . . . .

They hadn't worked out a plan. They had no tactics, nothing beyond hoping that only one man came and hitting him as hard as they could.

It was Jenkins who stepped casually into the room. He didn't bother to switch on the light and his carelessness gave Sarah the opportunity she needed. Without giving him time for his vision to adjust, she swung a double-fisted punch that caught him square on the side of his head. The force made him stagger backwards. Before he could recover his footing, she hit him again, slamming his head back, and then barreled into him and took him to the floor.

They both landed heavily. Momentarily stunned, she tried to shake off the crippling dizziness, but the thump of his boot into her abdomen left her gasping and coughing. For an endless second, she couldn't move. As if in slow-motion, she watched Jenkins clamber to his hands and knees and fumble for the radio on his belt.

He never got the chance to call for help. From low on the floor, Derek threw his hands over Jenkins' head and pulled the chain of his handcuffs taut across the man's throat. Jenkins gagged, dropping the radio, his clumsy fingers flailing, trying to find purchase on the metal choking him. It was a good enough distraction to enable Sarah to pull the gun free from his holster. Hypoxic, his vision failing, his body began to go limp. He barely felt the blow from his own pistol that sprayed his blood across the green-tinged wall and finally rendered him senseless.

"Oh fuck." Dropping his hands away, Derek bent over double, straining to catch his breath.

Sarah cast a fleeting glance in his direction but couldn't spare any more than that. Scrambling over to Jenkins, she patted him down and found a switchblade, a second handgun, and the keys for Derek's handcuffs.

"Here. Easy. Stay still." The cuffs fell away, and just as quickly she fastened them around Jenkins' wrists. Taking his belt off, she bound his feet, struggling in her own restraints to pull the leather tight enough.

A touch to her shoulder made her jump and she spun around to find Derek, his hands raised, the knife glinting in one of them. Without speaking, she held her wrists out to him, waiting impatiently until he had sliced through the rope and biting back a whimper as the strands peeled away from her torn skin.

"What now?" He took the gun she held out to him and checked its clip.

She made a mystified noise. She had never actually expected to get to this point but, when she thought about it, they didn't exactly have a lot of choices open to them.

"Carey. Warm clothes. Blow the place to fuck and run like hell." She slapped the clip back into her own gun. "Let's move."

. . . . .

Al Carey was a true believer. Recruited as a youth out of a career stacking shelves and breaking the bones of people who pissed him off, he had been indoctrinated, trained, and then elevated into a position of power. He was now trusted to help ensure that the future turned out the way it was supposed to. He was under no illusions about the nature of that future, but, having spent the early part of his life as one of society's bottom-feeders, there was no way he was passing up the opportunity to rise to the top. Consequently, when he heard Sarah Connor's voice commanding him to put his hands in the air and turn around slowly, the bitter recognition of his failure was hard to bear.

"Now."

The bullet Sarah fired buried itself into the wooden crate which Carey was standing beside. The splinters of wood that flew up and dug into his cheek sent the desired message, and he turned, his hands raised, his face blazing with hatred.

"Should've just fucking killed you." He spat the words out as he stared at her.

"Yeah." She left Derek covering him and moved to pat him down. "You probably should've."

Carey was well-equipped. She dropped duct tape, several knives and a small blowtorch onto the crate and tucked two more handguns into the belt on her combats.

"Hands behind your back." His hands swung down in a lazy arc, his left fist clenched and ready to strike.

There was no warning. Derek fired instantly. The bullet punched a chunk out of Carey's biceps and he howled with rage, the fingers on his right hand clutching the wound.

Without blinking, Sarah picked up the duct tape. "Shall we try that again?"

"Son of a fucking bitch!" For a big man, Carey didn't seem to tolerate pain very well. "You're dead, you're both dead."

"The next one goes between your eyes," Derek warned.

With a low moan, Carey positioned his hands behind his back and allowed Sarah to wrap tape around them.

"Move." The jab of her Beretta between his shoulder blades encouraged Carey out of the warehouse and into the corridor. "We need clothes and boots," she said, trying to keep her voice level despite the pain that was screaming through her with every step she took. "And then you're going to show us what's in D6."

. . . . .

The coat was too big for her, but it was thicker than the one she had arrived in, and Sarah allowed herself a second just to enjoy the sensation of being warm again. Carey had taken them to the store where Jenkins had dumped their clothes, and he sat glowering in the corner as they raided the company supplies. They selected the best of the outdoor wear, quickly pulling on waterproof pants, pocketing gloves, ski masks and scarves, and doubling up their socks.

"These might be better."

Derek handed her a pair of boots that were a size bigger than her own. She heard Carey snigger softly.

"Someone fuck up your feet, Connor?"

Ignoring him, she drew in a deep breath, pushed her feet into the boots and laced them as tightly as she could bear. She walked over to Carey.

"I've been fucked up worse," she said with a shrug. She smiled when the smirk fell from his face, and then leveled the gun at him again. "D6. Lead the way."

. . . . .

D6 contained enough demolition equipment to vaporize an office block. The explosives left over from the original construction of the facility had been carefully preserved. After they had dismantled all of Sarah's earlier efforts, someone had placed her bags alongside them.

"So this is how Kaliba works?" Sarah was eyeing the barrels, the small trolley and the C4 while trying to make rough calculations in her head. "You build in the middle of nowhere, but you're always ready to cover your tracks if necessary?" She hauled a bag over her shoulder. "Is that what happened to Desert Heat and Air?"

Carey gave her a look of genuine bewilderment. "You tell me."

She laughed, short and sharp. "Oh, that wasn't me. I was busy trying to get a bullet out of my leg when your warehouse went up in smoke."

He shrugged casually, but she could see his confusion and knew that he believed her. Which meant that she also believed him, and that left only one possible explanation.

"I guess someone else has Kaliba in their sights." There was no time to worry about a third party, but she made a mental note of the information for later. "Turn around." He turned and she slit the tape on his wrists. "Get two barrels loaded, then put your hands where I can see them and get on your knees."

There was a soft tap on the door, followed by another two in quick succession, and Derek entered.

"Monitors are down. Jenkins is still unconscious." He sounded out of breath. Smashing the security system into pieces had expended energy that he couldn't afford to spare.

"Good." She looked at Derek and then lifted the second bag as if that had been her intention all along. "You got him?"

"Yeah." Derek nodded, grateful for her tact. "Yeah, I got him."

"Let's go." She waited while Carey made a show of climbing obediently to his feet. "We'll start with the factory, and on the way there you can tell me where Dyson went..."

. . . . .

It was like déjà vu, only this time slightly easier because the layout was familiar and Carey was surprisingly deft with the wiring. He hadn't been able to give Sarah the address where Dyson was heading, but, when Derek had fired up the blowtorch, he had sullenly provided another company name, and that had been enough for him to keep his body parts intact.

Sarah looked up at the looming mass of the HK and nodded in satisfaction when Carey rolled one of their barrels directly beneath it. Derek taped additional C4 to the barrels of jet-fuel and smiled grimly. It might have been overkill, but he had first-hand experience of being hunted by one of these machines, and he wasn't in the mood to take any chances.

. . . . .

In the dark of Sub-C, Jenkins opened his eyes with a groan and wondered why he couldn't move. It took him a full minute to remember what had happened and where he was. His back was to the door; he turned himself to face it. The keypad was blinking red, indicating that he was locked in. That wasn't a problem when he knew the override code. His problem was the handcuffs binding his wrists.

Pushing himself into a sitting position, he gritted his teeth and heard the crunch of bone as his thumb dislocated. When he twisted his wrists, the metal ground into his skin, making the bracelet slick with blood, and it fell away with a final, awful effort. He allowed himself the time to correct the deformity to his hand before unfastening his ankles and walking over to the door. He had done too much too quickly, and the keypad swam in front of him, the numbers a mess of blurred gray. It took him two attempts at the code before the light flashed green and he heard the click of the lock disengaging. Stepping out into the corridor, he took a steadying breath. He needed a weapon and back-up. But mostly, he needed to know where Connor and Reese were hiding.

. . . . .

"Carey? Come in. State your location. Over."

Her eyes wide, Sarah pulled the radio from her duffel bag.

"How the fuck?" Derek looked over his shoulder, his gun still trained on Carey, who was smiling as if he had just been told the funniest joke ever.

"Gonna answer him, Sarah? Let him know where I am?"

"No." She had managed to compose herself, and was studying Carey thoughtfully. "No. You're going to answer him. You're going to tell him you're over in…" She looked to Derek for guidance.

"Sector A. It's on the other side."

She nodded. "Sector A. That you tracked us there and you think you have us cornered."

"Sector A. Tracked you. Got you cornered." Carey still looked far too cheerful.

"Deviate and you lose something vital." Sarah beckoned him over and pressed her gun against his forehead. "Okay. Talk."

"Jenkins?"

"Yeah." Jenkins sounded slightly groggy, but nowhere near as groggy as Sarah would have liked. "They're out. The monitors are smashed. I'm gonna see if Dyson left a PDA in the labs and activate that. What's your location?"

"Sector A. I tracked them out here." Carey looked to Sarah for her approval and she nodded curtly. "I think I have them cornered."

"Give me ten. I'm on my way."

"Roger that." Carey's thumb lingered on the button just slightly longer than necessary, and then he dropped it away and handed the radio back to Sarah. "Happy?" Carey was. He was grinning from ear to ear.

She looked at the radio, replaying the conversation in her head. "The PDA. What would he need to activate that for?"

Carey shrugged, but it only took a second for his ego to win through over his common sense. "It means none of what I just told him will do a bit of fucking good and he'll find you anyway."

"How?" The gun was back at his forehead. She was pushing so hard that his skin was bruising.

He winked at her as he watched her face lose the little color it had; he knew that she had worked it out.

"A tracking device," she said, the words thick with loathing. "You put implants in us."

Having completed the last section of wiring, Derek was listening to the exchange, the detonator in his hand.

"Where are they?" Her voice was calm and dangerous. Her finger twitched on the trigger.

Carey licked his lips, his bravado wavering. "Right thigh." He watched Derek pick up a knife and snorted with disdain. "They're in deep, and they're small. You're not gonna find them easily." He turned towards Sarah, and his grin was back. "And you're not gonna be running very fast once he's done cutting you to ribbons."

Sarah dropped her hand slightly and looked to Derek. It was the opening Carey had been waiting for. Without making a sound, he brought his arm up, slamming it across her throat and sending her crashing to the floor. He reached down, his fingers scrabbling on the smooth material of her coat as he tried and failed to get a firm grip. She slapped his hand away and he only had her half-way to her feet when Derek fired.

Derek was as good as his word; Carey took the bullet right between the eyes. Sarah let out a strangled cry as Carey's momentum took her to the floor again, his body crashing down on top of her. She couldn't breathe and her struggles were almost frantic as she tried to get out from beneath him.

The crushing weight rolled away from her abruptly. Gasping for air, she lay flat on her back.

"Thanks." She took Derek's hand, but pushed herself to her feet. He nodded, his eyes slightly wild. Picking up the knife, she held it out to him.

"No."

"No? Derek, you heard what he said. How the fuck are we going to get far enough away if Jenkins can find us without even breaking a sweat?"

"We're not," he answered without hesitation. "He's going to find us. When he does, we'll have to deal with him." He was throwing everything he could find into one of the duffel bags. "But John has a PDA. If Jenkins can track us, maybe John can too. If something goes wrong and we get stuck out there…"

"We are not leading John out here!" She brandished the knife at him again and he caught her wrist, holding onto it tightly.

"Sarah, he'll come anyway."

"No." Her voice broke on the word, uncertainty creeping in. "I told Cameron." She tried to wrench her hand free, but her efforts tapered off as she saw Derek shake his head.

"He'll come anyway," he said gently. "At least this way he might have something to head towards." He pried the knife from her fingers. "We need to go. Vehicle bay is about five minutes from here."

She nodded, wiping her cheeks dry with her fist. She had no intention of leaving the implants in situ for John to trace, but that argument would have to wait. The thought of her son being drawn back there compelled her to push aside her injuries and her fatigue. Moving with a renewed sense of urgency, she zipped the bag closed and then took the detonator from Derek, placing it carefully into a side pocket.

They had to step over Carey to reach the door. A thick pool of blood had already collected beneath his head and his eyes stared unseeing. The swelling to Sarah's feet was affecting her balance and she took the hand Derek offered to help her negotiate the obstacle. It was the only consideration either of them gave the body as they left the room.

. . . . .

"Son of a bitch." Sarah dropped her hands onto her knees, breathing heavily as she stared at the ruin of the two trucks in the bay. Jenkins hadn't been discreet, but had just smashed the engines to hell, put a knife through the tires and moved on. The fact that he hadn't waited there to ambush them probably meant he had erred on the side of caution and gone to find the PDA.

"These are the only ones." Derek raised his head slowly; he was wavering on his feet. "You go."

"Yeah, nice try." She grabbed his arm and slung it over her shoulders before tucking her own arm around his waist. "If I have to go out into the snow, you're coming with me."

He laughed and then started to cough, and she had to work hard to keep him upright. He nodded at her before he had fully recovered, and they started to move towards the nearest exit.

"We need to try to get to the treeline." They needed to be a safe distance before she could detonate the explosives. She opened the door, the freezing wind immediately stealing her breath. She could feel Derek leaning heavily against her. He was already shivering and she realized, with a slow, sinking sense of dread, that they would be lucky to get as far as the fence.

. . . . .

They had walked straight out into a blizzard. As they plunged knee-deep into the snow, the facility was lost from sight within seconds. With no way to communicate effectively, Derek had pointed to indicate a direction, and they had clasped hands in an effort to keep together. The snow flew into Sarah's eyes and stung the small exposed patches of her face where her ski mask didn't quite fit snugly enough. Beside her, Derek stumbled frequently but was managing to walk unaided.

She was counting, trying to gauge how far they had traveled and how far they still needed to go before she could safely detonate the charges. They had not gone far enough, nowhere near far enough. She tried to console herself with the fact that their exit had been on the same side as their original entrance, which meant they were heading for the same stretch of fence. She was under no illusions that they would be fortunate enough to find the hole they had cut, but at least they had a chance of ending up near the logging track.

Her legs burned with the effort of wading through the thick powder and a sharp little pain in her chest had started to make her cough. Derek trailed an arm's length behind her; she stopped briefly to allow him to catch up. As soon as he did, he squeezed her hand and she moved on again. Neither of them wanted to stop. They were both well aware that, if they stopped, the temptation to lie down in the snow and close their eyes would be overwhelming.

. . . . .

The shrill beep and the insistent flash of light woke John up. Lying in bed, he peered at the ceiling, his brow furrowed with confusion as the pine logs were intermittently bathed with a wash of red. He threw the covers back and looked towards the desk, adrenaline shaking off the remnants of sleep as he saw that the glow was coming from the screen of the PDA.

"What the hell?"

The screen bore the outline of a building and two small dots. After thirty seconds, the image updated and the dots had moved away from the building slightly. He stared unblinking, not quite trusting his own eyes, but thirty seconds later the same thing happened and he ran from the room shouting for Cameron.

. . . . .

"The last time this device received any information, we were lured into a trap." Cameron was watching the screen, her expression wary.

"I know that, but it could be them."

"It could be anyone."

He took hold of the device. "I think this is the main building, and this," he traced a thin line some distance away from the dots, "I think this is the perimeter fence." He took a breath but his hand shook anyway. "I think they're running."

She tilted her head to one side, measuring the scale and the progress of each update. "They're not running," she said. "At best, they are walking quite slowly."

"You really think Kaliba would chip two of its own and send them out for a stroll in the middle of a night like this, on the off-chance that we might head out there?"

From the window over his shoulder, she could see the snow coming down hard. "It sounds unlikely," she conceded. "I don't think anyone would survive for very long on a night like this." She heard his sharp intake of breath and realized, too late, that that had been precisely the wrong thing to say.

He set the PDA down on the table with utmost care, as if the slightest jolt would be enough to break the signal it was receiving. "Then we go and find them." His hand came up to cut off any attempt she might have made to contradict him. "Blankets, first aid kit, whatever weapons we have. There's a couple of Thermoses under the sink and there were chemical heating pads in the bathroom."

"If they're moving that slowly…"

"Then they're probably injured. I know that." He was already heading towards the bedroom door, but he hesitated and turned back to face her. "So we bring them back here and we fix them."

She said nothing, and he left the room, cupboards banging as he started to collect supplies together. On the screen, the two dots moved again, their progress barely registering. John would go on his own if she didn't go with him. She remembered her promise to Sarah and wondered whether, if she actually did manage to find them and fix them, Sarah would then attempt to dismantle her regardless.

. . . . .

The first time she heard it, Sarah dismissed it as part of the storm; a small popping sound, faint and quick to fade. Another ten paces, and this time she recognized it for what it was. Stopping sharply, she pulled Derek's hand down. He followed her lead and crouched low. Twenty feet behind them, the snow to the left of their footprints was suddenly flung upwards as a bullet fell short of its target.

"Shit." She pushed Derek on ahead of her, urging him forwards and pulling her own gun free. Unable to identify Jenkins' location, she fired three optimistic shots off and then followed Derek. When she turned again, she saw a brief flash of light, bobbing as it moved. It was still a good distance away, but gaining ground far more quickly than she expected, and she realized then that Jenkins wasn't on foot. More gunfire splattered into the powder. She ran as quickly as she could, catching up with Derek easily and fumbling in the side pocket of her bag.

His eyes widened when he saw the detonator in her hand and he shook his head once as another spray of bullets left pockmarks in the snow. In front of them loomed the silver mesh of the fence. Behind them, whatever Jenkins was driving wasn't close enough for them to hear its engine or pick its shape out of the blizzard. From a collection of really shitty options, she took the only one in which they got to decide their own fate. When her thumb flicked up the protective cover on the detonator, Derek gave her a look that suggested he might have issues with her later, if they actually survived, but he managed a thin smile right before he dived as deeply into the snow as he could.

Sarah took a breath and hit the switch.

Even as she threw herself over Derek, she could hear the dull roar of the initial explosion. The noise grew exponentially. The ground beneath them began to rumble and shake as the chain reaction they had wired throughout the facility gathered momentum. She pushed down hard and felt him trying to do the same. Snow quickly covered them, giving them the illusion of protection, but as a huge fireball lit up the sky and the heat-wave expanded outwards she knew that would never be enough.


	6. Chapter 6

When she looked up into the sky, embers were drifting amongst the snowflakes like wayward fireflies, and Sarah squinted with confusion before realizing she was lying on her back.

"Oh fuck…"

Her hands reached down, grappling to pinpoint the source of the shearing pain in her thigh.

"Sarah, stay still."

She turned her head sharply. Derek was kneeling beside her and unwinding his scarf from around his neck.

"What?" Pushing herself up, she took in the wreckage that remained of Deacon Research and Development, a twisted shell of metal and concrete with small explosions still popping in its centre. "Oh." She fell back and then tried to get up again. "Jenkins?"

"I think that's him." Derek pointed to a blackened lump at the outer edges of the area of singed earth. "He's gone, anyway. You've been out for about ten minutes and there's nothing moving back there."

"You okay?" Sarah looked towards Derek. He seemed relatively unscathed, but he was moving clumsily and his breathing was erratic.

"Yeah. Well, no worse, anyway." He shuffled closer. "You took some shrapnel."

"Yeah, I figured." She could feel the shard of metal sticking out of the back of her left thigh. Moving the leg experimentally, she consoled herself with the fact that this time her femur seemed to be intact.

"And you were on fire," he added as an afterthought.

"I was?"

"Just the outer layer of your coat and pants. The snow put you out pretty quickly when I rolled you over." He moved her hands from her leg, and turned her onto her side slightly. "Ready?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, but nodded once, and without giving her the opportunity to tense up he took hold of the metal and pulled hard.

"Jesus." Spots danced across her vision, snowflakes and fire colliding with the rush of darkness. Reaching out sluggishly, she grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed it onto her face. The shock of the cold had the desired effect and the threat of fainting gradually faded. With awareness came the full force of the pain; she moaned softly, willing the freezing temperature to numb it to a bearable level. She could feel his hand pressing on the cavity he had made and the steady flow of blood that escaped his fingers.

"Bend your knee."

She slowly did as he asked, clenching her fists as he wrapped his scarf around her leg and pulled it tight.

"That feel okay?"

"Mm." It didn't, but the cold was seeping in and that was helping. Without being prompted, she held her hand out to him and struggled to stand. Her leg threatened to give way, but she pushed down firmly and managed to stay on her feet. When she took a cautious step and didn't fall flat on her face, she let out a relieved breath. They had to keep moving. Her priority was finding somewhere to shelter, but they needed to put some distance between themselves and the wreckage before any of the authorities worked out what had happened.

"Think John's on his way?" she asked quietly.

Derek answered without hesitation. "If he's picking up a signal then he's on his way. There's no-one left but us, Sarah. He'll be okay."

The sound she made in response to that was a desperate one, and she couldn't meet his eyes. She had intended them to cut out the implants, rest, and then carry on hiking down the logging track, but she realized now how completely unrealistic that plan was.

Derek tipped her chin with his hand. "We kill the signal, John's going to search blindly till he finds you."

She knew Derek was right. The last thing she wanted was John out there for any longer than he needed to be. Nodding slowly, she tried to order her thoughts. "The implants will still need to be removed."

"Yes."

"As soon as they find us." She didn't need to elaborate, didn't need to tell him that they would probably be unconscious or dead by then. Lowering herself to her knees again, she struggled to unzip the bag, and then ran her hands around the base of it. Her fingers finally closed around a marker pen. She quickly tore a page from the map book they had brought.

Implant – right thigh. It was difficult to write, her hand only able to hold the pen loosely. Derek had gotten her idea and was occupied with cutting lengths of duct tape. He wasn't watching her. Her hand shook, her fingers cramping with the effort. I love you.

She folded the note as tightly as she could and gave it to Derek. He taped it to her chest, covering it with enough strips to keep it protected from the snow. The black of the tape stood out plainly against her gray jacket.

He wrapped his hand around hers and set off walking as soon as she did.

. . . . .

It had taken too long. Sarah's fingers had been next to useless, fumbling with the wire cutters, dropping them frequently and forcing her to dig them out of the snow. By the time she had cut an adequate hole in both layers of the fence, Derek was barely conscious, his lips blue and his eyes unfocused.

"C'mon." She tugged at his jacket, both of her hands wrapped in the fabric. Halfway up, he fell back down again. In an instant, she saw his brother – Kyle's body ruined and unmoving as fires blazed all around them. "No." She shook him, pulling at him again. "Derek, get up. C'mon." He made a half-hearted attempt to push her away. She shook him harder. "Derek Reese, get the fuck up with me, now!"

Her voice strained and cracked as she shouted over the howl of the wind, but he was moving, his hands clutching at her, and together they managed to get him sitting up. He didn't seem to understand fully why he then had to crawl through two jagged wire holes, but he followed her instructions regardless. By the time she had pushed her bag and then herself through to the other side, he was still standing, his expression blank as he stared at the trees.

"Just a little further," she said, wrapping her arm around him.

She had set the treeline as some sort of goal, a destination to aim for. The only problem was that she had no idea what she would do when they reached it.

. . . . .

The Jeep's wheels spun, snow flicking up in a blur, as John struggled to reverse it. He felt the tires slip and then unexpectedly gain the slightest hint of traction, and he eased the steering wheel to the left in accordance with Cameron's hand signals. When she gave him a thumbs-up, he let the engine idle, wiping his sweaty palms onto his pants and trying not to look at the clock on the dash. Without the slightest effort, Cameron lifted the ice-encrusted rock they had run aground on, and cleared it from their path. When she opened the driver's door and waited for him to clamber over into the passenger seat, the wind whistled into the truck. He took his seat, feeling slightly useless, but the debris on the track was usually too heavy for him to shift, and her ability to detect it in advance meant that they were avoiding more than they were hitting.

Their progress had been achingly slow but they were making progress, and he forced himself to try to relax. On the screen of the PDA, the two dots had reached the outskirts of the forest. He glanced at the dash again and chewed nervously on his bottom lip. The thermometer at the side of the clock was giving a reading of 2°F.

. . . . .

"Okay, easy. You can sit down now."

With both arms around Derek, Sarah lowered him to the ground. He didn't even seem to notice that they had stopped. His eyes closed immediately, fluid gurgling in his throat, and with a sudden twist of fear she realized he was no longer shivering. The extensive list of hypothermia symptoms that she had read on Wilderness Bob's website was hazy now, but she remembered that particular one being highlighted as a late and ominous development.

She turned around slowly, trying to gauge the territory and the depth of the snow. Away to the right, a stunted fir with low branches stood beside a large boulder. She limped over to it and dropped to her knees. Beneath the tree, the snow had gathered thickly, the prevailing wind causing it to drift around the trunk. The powder moved easily when she scooped her hands into it, and she began to dig out a hollow that was wide enough for them to sit in and deep enough to create a wind-break. Low branches gave some protection from the snow that had begun to fall heavily again.

By the time she went back for Derek, the activity had made her warmer and her head was clearer. She didn't try to rouse him. Taking hold of his arms, she dragged him over to the shelter and tucked him inside.

There were matches in the duffel bag, but after her third failed attempt to light sodden twigs she gave up and resigned herself to sharing body heat for warmth. Emptying the matches from their plastic bag, she filled the bag with snow. Then she opened her coat, tucked the bag inside it and maneuvered herself behind Derek.

"Oh God." She shuddered as the chill of the plastic passed through her clothing, but the snow slowly began to melt and she endured the discomfort until they had enough water to drink. Tearing a small hole in the plastic, she dripped the water into his mouth. After choking and spluttering her first offering down his chin, he gradually seemed to get the idea and managed to drink half of the liquid. She drank the rest and forced herself to start all over again, pulling him firmly back against her to compensate for the loss of her own heat.

They shared another bag, but by the time she had finished her portion, she couldn't remember exactly how she had started the process off. Her arms felt stiff as she struggled to interlock her fingers across his chest, and when she breathed she could feel infection thick and heavy at the bases of her lungs. She thought about John, but he was four years old and chasing through the jungle. Then he was seven, and crying and hating her for not being able to afford summer camp, when the truth was she couldn't protect him if she let him go. She needed to move so that he wouldn't come out there, but she couldn't push up with her legs, and as soon as she tried she forgot exactly why she was making the effort.

The snow rustled gently as it landed on the pine needles, steady and soothing now that they were sheltered from the wind. Closing her eyes, Sarah finally stopped fighting and let it lull her to sleep.

. . . . .

"They're not moving."

John stared at the PDA. Thirty seconds ticked by and the dots were still in the same place. He shook the device carefully and then, fearing for its signal, held it up in different positions around the truck's interior. Two minutes passed and nothing changed. Until then, one or both of the dots had consistently shifted position at each update.

"They're not too far from the track," Cameron said, diplomatically. She checked the truck's digital display and decided not to comment any further. From the expression on his face, John was well aware that stopping in such temperatures for any length of time would be incredibly dangerous, and did not need her to point that fact out to him. Accelerating smoothly around a small rock, she felt quite pleased with herself. She had read about tact one night when she was studying the dictionary, but this was the first occasion she had remembered to use any.

. . . . .

"Mom!" John spun around, the beam of his flashlight gliding off the huge trees and throwing back shadows. "Mom! Derek!"

Beside him, Cameron was turning slowly. Using her thermal imaging, she was scanning for body heat, her face blank as she concentrated. Since leaving the truck, they had hiked for twenty minutes. According to the PDA, they were now practically standing on the origin of its signal.

John walked further into the dense patch of trees, searching for signs of disturbance, for any indication that someone had passed through the area. There was nothing. He tried to tell himself that the snowfall would have obliterated such signs within minutes, but his breath was coming in huge, shuddering gulps and he could feel tears tracking a cold path down his cheeks.

"Mom!"

The wind swirled his cries away, but he continued to call out, not caring that his voice broke more often than not. In the clearing, he could see Cameron shaking her head. He ignored her, walked a little further, and shouted again.

. . . . .

The snow had covered them like a blanket, hiding them from view as it slowly leeched the life from them. Barely conscious and unable to understand what was happening to her, Sarah reacted instinctively to the sound of her son's voice.

Her left hand was all that she could move, and it took a desperate effort to lift it from the snow. It fell back immediately, her fingers frozen and useless. Too drowsy to try again, she closed her eyes.

. . . . .

Cameron snapped her head around when she heard the noise. It had been a sound distinct from the muted sounds of the storm, a rustle of fabric followed by the thud of something dropping, and she focused in on the direction. Her imaging program picked out hibernating creatures snug in their burrows before finally centering on two larger shapes. These shapes were colored in blues and greens and the faintest hint of yellow, and they were unmistakably human. When she recognized Sarah's smaller form, she lowered her gun and called John over. He came at once, stumbling in the undergrowth and shining his flashlight where she pointed.

He was running before he had time to be afraid. When he reached the boulder, he hurled himself down, shifting the snow away frantically. He didn't look at the gloved hand that marked their position. If he looked at it, he would have to start wondering why it wasn't moving.

"Mom?" The word escaped him in a whisper. Her face now uncovered, Sarah was deathly pale, tiny beads of frost glistening on her eyelashes. He brushed them away as if that was the only thing stopping her from waking.

Behind him, Cameron had taken over the digging. She pulled Derek free from Sarah's hold and laid him down.

"Are they alive?" John was staring, terrified, at his mother. She hadn't moved, her eyes were still closed, and he couldn't see her breathing.

"Derek is." Holding her bare hand above Derek's nose and mouth, Cameron could detect the faintest movement of air as he breathed.

John followed her lead. It seemed to take forever before he felt Sarah take a breath, and when she did his face crumpled. "We need to get them out of here." He didn't care that he was crying. "We need…" It was only when he pulled her forward into his arms that he noticed the tape on her jacket. "…Cameron?"

The machine's dexterity was unaffected by the cold. She efficiently dispensed with the tape and then hesitated with the paper in her hand. Without unfolding it, she passed it to John and took a step back. The paper crinkled and rustled. When he spoke again, she could hear the effort it was taking for him to keep his voice level.

"Right thigh. That's where the implants are."

Cameron had already flicked open a knife and was holding the fabric of Derek's pants taut to make them easier to cut through.

John's eyes widened as he watched her. He shook his head. "No. Not now. We need to get them out of here." Sarah's face was ice-cold where it rested against his, and her lips were purple.

"If we take them to the cabin, Kaliba has our location." Resolute, Cameron placed the tip of the knife to the fabric.

"Not to the cabin, to the truck. We can do it there. We have the full kit there and we can start getting them warmer."

Recognizing that it was a more practical course of action, Cameron closed her knife and placed it back in her pocket. Without giving her the opportunity to reconsider, John stood up, cradling Sarah in his arms. He waited for Cameron to lift Derek and then followed her footsteps through the trees. He managed to keep her within sight, even though his muscles burned and his breath came in gasps. For every four breaths he took, his mother took one, the tiny movement of air cool but reassuring against his cheek. He lowered his head against the wind and kept walking.

. . . . .

The sun was just beginning to rise when they reached the truck. Thin streams of winter light crept between the trees as the storm clouds blew over in a strengthening wind. The forest, glistening with fresh snowfall, was picture-perfect, and under any other circumstances John would have been awed by the sight. As he laid Sarah beside Derek on the back seat, the only things he noticed in the increasing light were the bruises on her face, the matted blood in Derek's hair, and the deeply-stained scarf knotted around her thigh.

"What do we do first?" He looked to Cameron. The machines always had detailed files on human anatomy. His mother had hated that; hated the fact that the knowledge was only there to make them more efficient as killers. John was fervently hoping it would make Cameron more effective as a healer.

She had already started the engine and turned the heat up high. "Place these under their arms, around the neck and over the groin. Don't put them directly onto the skin." She spoke as if she were reading aloud and he realized that was exactly what she was doing. Her eyes were fixed on him but focused elsewhere at the same time.

Taking the chemical heat pads from her, he began to activate them and tuck them in where she had instructed. Running her hands over her two patients, she decided their clothing was waterproof enough to stay on them until they got to the cabin. When John was finished, she covered them with blankets and used her own jacket to prop Derek up slightly.

"I need antiseptic wipes, the scalpel and the artery forceps." She folded the blanket back to expose Derek's leg and used her knife to cut through his pants. There was a small reddened area in the center of his thigh; she pressed hard over it, her eyes narrowed with concentration. "They've injected it deep into the muscle."

"Can you get it out?"

"Yes."

John passed her the wipes, and unfolded a pad of gauze in readiness. He looked away as she cut, but when the blood ran sluggishly across Derek's thigh, he soaked it up with the gauze, and took the bloodied scalpel back when she handed it to him. The forceps disappeared into the incision, working their way down gradually before finally opening as she located the tiny piece of metal. It came away with the slightest of twists. He pressed down hard on the wound to stem the bleeding.

"Keep the pressure on it." Cameron placed the implant to one side and began to wipe her instruments clean. "A simple dressing should suffice."

Her attempts to distract him were quite transparent, but he appreciated them anyway as she cut away Sarah's clothing.

"She won't feel it, John."

He nodded. His fingers were white where they held the gauze and he eased off slightly when he realized the bleeding was only light. By the time he was smoothing a dressing into place, Cameron had set the second implant next to the first and was gripping Sarah's leg tightly.

"They should be easy to destroy," she gestured at the crimson-slicked pieces of metal as she lifted her gauze to check Sarah's blood loss.

"Yeah," John said slowly, an idea beginning to take shape. "No. Wait." He pulled the PDA from his pocket and studied the screen. "They're still transmitting."

Cameron was a quick study. "Decoy."

"Decoy." He gave her a brief smile. "We can leave them out here for Kaliba to come and chase." He looked out of the window at the clouds massing again. A light snow was already beginning to fall. "By the time they get anyone to the area, our tracks will be long gone."

At her nod, he took up the implants, opened the truck's door and stepped outside. A flower of red blossomed outwards when he dropped them into the snow, but he smothered it quickly, sealing the metal into a tight snowball. Eyeing the clearest path, he aimed towards the facility, trying to give the snowball a realistic trajectory, and pitched it as far into the trees as he could. It dropped beyond his line of sight, but the two red dots continued to blink on the PDA, bright as a beacon and deep in the forest.

"Find that, you bastards," he whispered.

When he clambered back into the truck, Cameron was rearranging the blankets over Sarah.

"They okay?"

"They need fluids, glucose, antibiotics." Although these were all things they had, it was not feasible to administer any of them immediately. "And I need to drive very carefully." It wasn't what John wanted to hear, but her research had placed great emphasis upon this point. "In the severely hypothermic patient," she intoned, "an unexpected jolt can result in cardiac arrest."

Earlier, when she had adjusted the pace of her walking, John had merely assumed she had done so for his benefit, and he stared at her astounded. "Jesus, Cameron. Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"You were already being careful. I didn't want to worry you further."

"Next time, worry me, okay?" Settling in the footwell, he placed a protective hand across his mother and his uncle. "I'll stay in the back with them."

Where his hand rested, he could feel the shallow rise and fall when Sarah breathed. Her rate seemed to have increased slightly. He drew in a shaky breath of his own as Cameron pulled the Jeep out onto the track.

. . . . .

She was lying down and she was slightly warmer. Those two facts Sarah was able to discern without opening her eyes. Sleep pulled insistently at her again, but unease was beginning to eat into the lethargy and she knew she needed to get up.

When she tried to move, nothing cooperated. Her limbs were leaden and her fingers barely twitched, their tips completely numb. Which meant that firing a gun was out of the question, holding her gun wouldn't be possible, and if she couldn't form her hand into a fist she couldn't fight. If Kaliba had them again, she wouldn't be able to fight.

"Mom?"

She made a soft noise of distress. If that was a trick, it was a cruel one. But with her son's voice came the gentlest of touches on her shoulder. Not daring to hope but needing to know, she forced her eyes open and turned her head.

"Hey." John's hand moved to her face and rested on her forehead. There were tears in his eyes when he smiled. "You're both safe. We got the implants out," he said simply.

She licked her dry lips, but the relief at seeing him unharmed was making her dizzy and she couldn't do any more than that. Cameron spoke from the driver's seat. Too foggy to hear what had been said, Sarah saw him nod and felt him move away slightly. She was drifting off again when his hand lifted her head and a cup pressed against her lips.

"Try to drink this."

The smell of hot, sweet milk and chocolate turned her stomach, but the steam felt wonderful as it bathed her face and she swallowed obediently just to keep the cup there a little longer. When he took it away, she started to shiver and couldn't understand why that made him smile at her.

"I think that's a good sign, mom."

It didn't feel like a good sign. It made her ache all over and she started to cough.

"Easy, easy." He knelt higher and pulled her into his arms. Somehow, against the sway of the truck, he held her steady until the coughing stopped. She felt like a wrung-out rag when she was done and her eyes closed as soon as he laid her back down.

"We'll be home soon," he told her. "Go back to sleep."

She mumbled her agreement, and took his advice.

. . . . .

It seemed to take hours. Hours of painstakingly slow progress as Cameron avoided every bump, trough and concealed obstacle on the path. Hours of John watching and waiting and wishing he could do something. When they rounded the final bend and he saw the cabin, he laid his head down against his mother's side and felt a passing sorrow that he had no god to thank.

Sarah woke as he lifted her from the back seat. She shook her head, struggling weakly, but he tightened his hold.

"Just this once, mom. Let me." It wasn't as if she could've walked, had he actually set her down.

The fire was burning low in the hearth when he carried her into the cabin, the warm air soothing her throat as she breathed. Cameron had already taken Derek into John's bedroom, and Sarah could hear water running as the bath filled. After sitting her up against the pillows of her own bed, John covered her with blankets and edged towards the door.

"I'm gonna go get Cameron."

She smiled as he left, wondering if she'd imagined the sudden blush coloring his cheeks. If her hands had been working she could have undressed herself, but tearing off her gloves with her teeth had revealed white, nerveless fingertips. Some were already beginning to blister as the frostbite thawed. The friction of the material pulling across her fingers made her eyes tear and she curled onto her side, holding her hands out in front of her to stop them from touching anything else.

"You should've let me do that." Cameron knelt by the bedside. The machine's hands were warm and soft as she turned Sarah's wrists. "You have superficial frostbite."

"Yeah," Sarah gasped. Superficial wouldn't have been the word she would have chosen. Unable to bear the thought of Cameron doing anything to treat it, she changed the subject abruptly. "Derek okay?"

Cameron hesitated with her hand on the lid of the first aid kit. "He hasn't responded as quickly as you. I've started an IV and put him in a bath at the recommended temperature for core rewarming. John's with him."

She watched Sarah attempt to process the information, which seemed to take a little while. Although Cameron didn't want to press for a full account of what had happened, she needed to know whether they could afford to remain at the cabin for any length of time. She waited until Sarah looked up at her, and then kept her question simple: "What happened to the facility?"

"It's gone. They're all gone."

Cameron nodded; she had suspected as much. She had detected the smoke in the forest and there had been no-one in pursuit of them during the drive back, but confirmation was always preferable to supposition.

The warm air that had seemed such a blessing at first was now making all of Sarah's injuries throb in unison, and she screwed her eyes shut.

Noting her distress, Cameron opened the first aid kit and began to select items from it. "I need to get you undressed, and then I can give you something for the pain."

Sarah managed to unclench her teeth enough to give her consent. "Okay. Do what you have to do." And then knock me out, she added silently. There was a snick of scissors and she realized that Cameron was taking the easy option with her clothing. The machine gave a quiet oh of surprise when she cut Sarah's tank top away.

"What did he use?" Cameron pressed carefully against the linear contusions that covered Sarah's back. Satisfied there were no fractures, she soaked a cloth and began to clean the dirt from the numerous shallow cuts.

"Rubber baton, scalpel." Sarah drew her knees up, her body rigid. There was antiseptic in the water.

"Where else?"

"Nowhere," she said, too quickly. "I'm fine. You should see to Derek." She didn't know why she was lying. It made no sense really, but she felt freezing cold and too hot all at once and she just wanted to go back to sleep.

Not at all fooled, Cameron was studying her intently. "Sarah, where else?"

"Leg took some shrapnel." She hoped that would be enough for Cameron to be getting along with, but when she felt hands beginning to unfasten the laces on her boot she remembered exactly why she was attempting to obstruct the machine's examination. "No, don't… I can…"

The boot came off with difficulty and she closed her eyes as the room began to spin. She heard Cameron call her name sharply and felt hands holding her hair back as she vomited. Then she felt nothing.


	7. Chapter 7

John tapped on the door and pushed it open when Cameron answered. The machine had her back to him as she wrapped thick swathes of bandages around Sarah's feet. He walked over to the bed, dropping into the chair at Sarah's side and resting his hand just above her wrist where it seemed safe to touch. Her hands were swollen and mottled blue. Sterile dressings covered the weeping blisters on her fingers.

"What the hell happened to them?"

Derek's chest had been livid with bruises, his ribs broken, ligature marks around his wrists. John ran his finger lightly over the gauze on his mother's wrist and knew it was concealing the same marks.

"They were tortured," Cameron said quietly. She saw no reason to dissemble. John wasn't stupid, and leaving the details to his imagination was probably worse than telling him the truth.

He paled slightly, but swallowed hard and nodded. "She never tells them." Leaning forwards, he brushed a strand of sweat-soaked hair from Sarah's forehead. "They've tried so many times and she never tells them anything." He looked up at Cameron, a flare of anger crossing his face. "I thought you guys were capable of fucking learning."

"Some of us are," Cameron paused with a fresh bandage in her hands, "but these were humans, and it seems that some humans have cruelty built into their nature."

Taping the last piece of bandage into place, she watched his shoulders drop as anger faded to weary resignation. She collected the discarded wrappings together and stood up.

"I've dressed what I can and sutured the wound in her thigh. None of her injuries is life-threatening, but she's badly dehydrated. The IV will help with that. You need to try to get her to eat or drink something sweet when she wakes." She drew the blankets back over Sarah but left her feet uncovered, stilling John with a hand on his arm when he moved to correct her oversight. "Your mother has a lot of damage to her feet."

He lost a fraction more color from his face and she decided immediately that that was enough detail. She hoped he thought the damage was frostbite. "I've given her morphine through the IV. She's just sleeping, John."

Cameron chose not to mention that Sarah had passed out, nor that she had woken shortly afterwards barely coherent and writhing in pain. It was then that Cameron had given the morphine. Satisfied that she had told John a fairly accurate version of the truth, she allowed herself one small lie by omission. Placing her hand on Sarah's cheek, she measured the fever that was gradually taking hold. She selected antibiotics and a packet of acetaminophen from the first aid kit and set them on the bedside table.

"Give her these as soon as you can." She had to prioritize the IV drugs, and Derek was currently in even worse shape than Sarah.

John nodded, noting the dosages on the sheets of paper that Cameron had tucked into the packets. "I will."

"Derek?"

"He came around some in the bath. Enough for me to get him back to bed. His chest sounds like crap."

She scooped up a couple of small IV bags and headed for the door. "It would be more convenient for us to put them in the same bed," she said thoughtfully.

"Yeah," John laughed, "but I don't think my mom would go for that."

Cameron gave him a very odd look, one that seemed to imply he was an idiot, and then left without further comment. With a confused shrug, he poured a glass of water, set it beside the medication, and sat back to wait.

. . . . .

Derek Reese had a lot of scars. When Cameron had lifted him into the bath, she had counted at least twelve on his torso alone: burns from a pulse blast, badly healed bullet wounds, jagged rents from trying to fight in the twisted debris the machines had left behind. He had more wounds now, further weakening a body that was caught between hypothermia and a raging infection.

The last of the antibiotics dripped slowly into his arm. He had choked a little on the glucose gel she had squeezed onto his gums, but he had swallowed some and absorbed the rest, so that was another defect corrected.

As he breathed, she could hear the fluid choking his lungs. It was looser now that the antibiotics were in his system. She cleaned his face when he coughed and held him still when he thrashed against his fever. The sheer bloody-mindedness of human endurance never failed to intrigue her. Derek Reese had survived the end of the world. He had been shot and burned and slashed and had recovered to continue fighting. As the bag of antibiotics ran dry, she wondered whether something as simple as pneumonia would prove to be the death of him.

. . . . .

Sarah's dreams had been full of ice and fire and an endless path marching straight into a freezing wind. The wind had been so strong that she had barely been able to make any headway against it. Tired of trying, she was clawing herself towards waking when she heard her son's voice. Keeping her eyes closed for a moment longer, she smiled as she listened.

John wasn't reading, but rather reciting from memory. He was mangling the words and the accent, but she recognized the story all the same and loved him for his effort.

"I think you skipped a whole chapter there." Her voice was rough and scratchy, but he smiled broadly at her regardless.

"Yeah, sorry." He laughed. "That was the John Connor edited version. Here…" He gave her pills and water in what seemed to be a well-practiced routine, although she couldn't remember it ever happening before. "How you feeling?"

"Better." Mostly she felt numb, and wasn't sure whether that was due to the frostbite or the morphine. "How long?"

"Couple of days."

Even in the dim light she could see the deep shadows beneath his eyes, and suspected he had been beside her for the duration.

"Derek?"

He swapped the water for apple juice while he tried to decide what to tell her.

She took a sip and then pushed it away. "John? How is he?"

She felt his hand on hers. The pressure of it ached and burned, but she bit her lip and managed to curl her fingers around his.

"Cameron's slightly more optimistic than she was." Less than twenty-four hours earlier, Cameron had held out little hope for his uncle. "She says his fever is down slightly, but she's used all the IV antibiotics and he's still unconscious."

"He'll be okay," Sarah said immediately, hoping that she sounded more confident than she felt. Reaching out with her hand, she knocked her strip of antibiotics onto the bed. There were seven left in it. "Save these for him."

John was already shaking his head. "Mom, you need them."

"I can probably do without." She had not dragged Derek Reese's ass through the snow for hours only for him to die because they didn't have enough drugs to fix him. She still felt like hammered shit, but at least she was conscious.

There was a creak of plastic as John took hold of the packet, and she closed her eyes, grateful that he wasn't going to argue with her. "You should get some sleep, John."

"Yeah, yeah." Another creak, this one the wood of the chair's frame as he leaned back into it. "Isn't that my line?"

"Mmm. I don't know where you get your stubborn streak from," she muttered, and fell asleep to the sound of his quiet laughter.

. . . . .

The hot water pounded against John's shoulders and he dropped his head, hoping it would ease some of the tension from his muscles. He had left his mother sleeping comfortably, her fever well-controlled, her IV freshly changed. Cameron hadn't questioned him when he had handed her the antibiotics. She had just nodded, with that same, strange look on her face, as if she had been expecting them all along.

It had taken him a further five hours at his mother's bedside before he had finally deciphered the meaning behind that look.

The water washed two days' and three nights' worth of filth and sweat away. He watched as it swirled down the drain. There were times when he despaired of his destiny as humanity's future leader, and this was certainly one of those times. Closing his eyes, he ran his hands across the light growth of stubble on his face. The fact that Cameron had worked it out before him only served to make him feel worse. How could he hope to orchestrate and command an uprising against Skynet when he was stupid enough to have been blind to something so glaringly obvious?

. . . . .

The chair at Sarah's bedside was empty when she woke, and she hoped that meant John was catching up on the sleep he had been neglecting. She felt much clearer, as if the fog that had pinned her down for days had suddenly lifted. With clarity came the urge to get out of bed, and she gingerly experimented with moving her various battered parts.

Her hands were less swollen, the nerves in her fingertips hyper-sensitive with the slow return of circulation. When she reached for the glass of water on the table, she managed to grip it and raise it to her lips. It was a small sign of progress, but progress all the same. Throwing back the blankets, she dragged her legs around and lowered them to the floor. The pain in her feet instantly soaked her with cold sweat, but she squeezed her eyes shut, sucked in a breath and stood up anyway.

Her first attempt wasn't entirely successful. Before she could do anything to save herself, she was sitting back on the bed and cursing the Bambi-like wobble that had collapsed her legs from under her. She took more care with her second effort, bracing herself against the chair and clinging on to it until the head-rush eased. The sensation of standing was something akin to balancing on shards of glass, but she could cope with that. As soon as she was confident that she wouldn't faint, she unhooked her IV and took a step.

She found John on the sofa. Fast asleep, he was barely visible under a pile of blankets. She left him undisturbed, limping around the sofa and pushing open the door to the second bedroom.

"You should not be out of bed."

Cameron was in the middle of changing Derek's IV and didn't sound surprised to see her. Sarah might've been able to stumble past her exhausted son, but the machine's auditory acuity was flawless. Setting the IV down, Cameron crossed the room and wrapped an arm around her. Sarah didn't even pretend that she could manage. Her legs had started to buckle at the door, and when she was hit by a fit of coughing, Cameron all but carried her over to the chair.

"I don't think I will ever truly understand humans," Cameron declared as she hung Sarah's IV alongside Derek's.

Sarah nodded, working hard to breathe and not really listening. She was staring at Derek and trying to persuade herself that something in his condition had improved since she had seen him last. Eventually, she gave up. "He looks like crap."

"Yes." Cameron couldn't argue with that. "His fever is lower. His chest…" She didn't elaborate; the noise of his breathing completed her sentence for her. "He's been awake on three occasions, but incoherent. The last time he managed to swallow a dose of medication."

"That's good." Leaning forward, Sarah rested her hand on his.

"You really should be in bed." Cameron paid lip-service to the notion, but placed a bowl of water and a cloth within easy reach of her. "The IV will run for at least two hours. If he wakes, give him another antibiotic. If you need me…"

"I'll call," Sarah promised. She dipped the cloth into the water. "Thank you."

Tilting her head to one side, Cameron watched as Sarah struggled to stand and then used the cloth to bathe Derek's face. She was obviously hurting, and Cameron waited until she was safely seated again before leaving the room.

Taking the opportunity to step outside, Cameron performed a quick assessment of the immediate perimeter. She stayed close to the cabin, listening for any signs of disturbance within, but keeping her distance from Derek, as Sarah had intended.

Although human nature – on the whole – remained an enigma to the machine, when Sarah Connor was sick Cameron could read her like an open book.

. . . . .

"We don't have a turkey. So I made you a bagel."

Slouched on the sofa, his eyes still sleep-swollen and his back aching, John blinked twice and tried to remember ever having woken to a statement as random as that. Cameron was holding the plate out to him, looking apologetic.

"What? Thanks. Why?" He was starving, so he ate the bagel, but the turkey – try as he might, he couldn't figure the turkey out.

"The twenty-fifth of December is Christmas Day. Although we have plenty of appropriate trees outside, according to Wikipedia, there should also be turkey. Or perhaps ham."

He hesitated mid-chew. "It's the twenty-fifth today?"

"Yes. We also failed to put stockings out last night."

"Yeah." He smiled at the thought, but it was a long time since he had hung a Christmas stocking. "I guess we got distracted with manning our field hospital." The bagel disappeared with one final bite, and he wiped crumbs off his fingers and onto his pants. "How are they?"

"Derek's fever is lower and he is clearing his secretions more effectively."

John nodded with a slight wince; that was possibly more information than he had required. "My mom?"

"Your mother is recovering well." Cameron looked slightly wary.

"She is?"

"Yes." Picking up his empty plate, Cameron took two steps away from the sofa. "She must be feeling better because she got out of bed…"

"She did what?" He kicked the blankets off, snarling in frustration when they tangled in his feet.

"She's sitting with Derek."

"Yes, thank you, Cameron. I figured that one out by myself." It was difficult for him to be effectively sarcastic when his hair was sticking out at all angles and he was still trying to free his feet up.

She made no attempt to stop him when he stalked towards his bedroom. Although she was moderately concerned about the stability of their impromptu family unit, she wasn't entirely displeased by the turn of events. She had begun to despair that John would ever figure that one out by himself.

. . . . .

The snow fell silently beyond the glass as Sarah sat and watched Derek fighting for his breath. She could hear the rattle as he pulled air in and the awful wheeze as he forced it out again. It was taking all of her strength to stand, to wring the cloth out in the cool water, and to wipe it across his face and down his neck. His skin burned where she touched it, but that came as no relief, even when they had been so cold for so long.

There was no-one to hear her quiet whimper when she sat back down. The pain from the wound in her thigh bit fiercely and she twisted in an effort to ease the pressure on it. The movement made her take too deep a breath. She started to cough, the noise harsh and brittle, and she couldn't stop it.

The bedroom door was flung open within seconds.

"Jesus, mom!" John ran to her side, pouring water into a glass and holding it for her as she took careful sips. He left a steadying hand on her shoulder, and waited until she had regained control of her breathing before he spoke.

"What the hell are you doing out of bed?" He managed not to raise his voice, the fact that she had actually been able to get out of bed tempering his anger somewhat.

She didn't have the breath to answer him immediately.

He knelt down and rested his hand on her forehead. "I think your fever broke."

She was still so tired. She closed her eyes, feeling the tears falling slowly down her cheeks and the gentle touch of her son's fingers as he wiped them away.

"Cameron let you in here?"

"Yes." She looked down at him. "I didn't give her much of a choice."

"Yeah, I figured."

"I couldn't leave him with her."

"I know." John didn't know everything, but he knew enough to understand that it would probably not be a good idea for his uncle to wake up with a machine at his bedside. "Give me a minute, okay?"

She nodded, her eyes heavy with exhaustion.

He startled her when he came back, and she realized she had dozed off as soon as he had left. Pulling a chair up beside her, he draped a blanket over her knees and then handed her a mug of tea.

"Try that. Just take it slowly."

The tea was fragrant with vanilla and honey, and felt wonderful against the rawness of her throat.

"If you keep that down, Cameron says we can get rid of the IV."

"Mmhm." Sarah figured that she would probably be asleep long before she had a chance to feel nauseous. She felt John ease the cloth from her fingers and heard the splash of water as he dipped it into the bowl.

"Hey, mom?"

The fabric of his shirt rustled as he stood to bathe Derek's face. Fighting to stay awake, she waited for him to finish his question. When he sat back down, he was smiling.

"Merry Christmas," he said, and then laughed quietly at her expression of utter confusion. "I know. I guess we lost track. Today's the twenty-fifth."

"Christmas day," she said slowly.

"Yeah, Christmas day." Taking the empty mug from her hand, he leaned her back against the pillows on her chair. "My first white Christmas."

Her eyes were closing again, and he pulled the blanket up higher to cover her.

"I didn't buy you anything." She forced her eyes open, and they were full of half-dazed remorse.

"I'll take an I.O.U., just this once. You going to sleep now?"

She nodded, already most of the way there, and he watched her until her breathing evened out. Then he leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands.

He really had meant to ask her. When he had stepped into the room he had been determined to ask her about Derek, and why she hadn't told him, and why she hadn't trusted him. He had been indignant and angry, and that had lasted right up to the point where he had seen her hunched over and fighting for her breath. At that point, his priorities had shifted in an instant.

Sarah mumbled in her sleep, her face creasing with fear as a nightmare gripped her. Bringing his head up, John reached for her hand, stilling it when she twitched and jerked, and murmuring softly to her until she settled. Whatever else he needed to say to her could wait. Shuffling in his seat, he tried to find a position that didn't make his back ache. With a rueful smile, he realized that Cameron had been right: it was easier to keep an eye on them when they were both in the same room.

He glanced out of the window where the snow was piling up on the sill. It gathered steadily, blocking out the light, as he kept his vigil.

. . . . .

Having waited in the living room until she was confident she would not be required to intervene in any kind of confrontation, Cameron headed back into the kitchen. Sorting through the main cupboard, she found cans of beef stew and meatballs that seemed to involve a very loose definition of meat, but there was nothing resembling the component parts of a Christmas dinner. Her hand closed around a packet of macaroni and cheese. It was one of Sarah's favorites, being practically impossible to burn, undercook, or otherwise destroy. Cameron didn't know whether it made for an appropriate Christmas meal, but her research indicated it was a good choice for convalescing patients.

Satisfied with her selection and by the sense of peace in the cabin, she set the packet to one side and took up her assault rifle and a tool kit. It was too early for dinner, and if they didn't need her she had maintenance checks on the Jeep to perform. Her last check of the PDA had shown the two dots still blinking steadily in the middle of the forest, but, despite that, she did not intend them to stay at the cabin any longer than was absolutely necessary.

. . . . .

"Derek? Hey. Can you hear me?"

Derek's brow was furrowed with confusion, but eventually he peeled his eyes open and focused on his nephew.

"Here."

He drank the water greedily and then coughed a good amount down his chin.

"I think you're supposed to sip it," John said, not entirely confident in his role as nurse.

Derek gave John a look, but was more careful with his second attempt. He licked his lips and then ran a leaden hand across his face, startled to discover a decent growth of beard.

"Been about three-and-a-half days. You were really sick." John set the water down and touched his hand to Derek's forehead. "You're cooler. That's good."

Derek's gaze was fixed on Sarah, sleeping soundly in the chair beside her son. He nodded distractedly. "How's she doing?" His voice sounded as if he had been gargling with sand.

With a sympathetic wince, John handed him the water again. "She's okay. You both took a battering, but she's okay."

Reassured, Derek closed his eyes. "She should be in bed, John."

He heard John's laugh – short, sharp and hopeless. "Yeah, and when she next wakes up, you can try telling her that."

. . . . .

Sensing that something was different, Sarah awoke with a start. The only light in the room came from the snow and a radiant full moon, but it was enough for her to see that John's chair was empty and Derek's eyes were open. He was watching her blearily.

"You took your time," she said lightly. "I've been up for days."

He laughed, his hand moving to splint his ribs. "You're a rotten liar, Connor."

In an attempt to prove her point, she pushed herself out of the chair and perched on the bed. It was a ruse that might have worked had she not immediately pitched forward.

"Shit." She gripped the arm he put out to steady her.

"So, when you say you've been up…"

"I might have been exaggerating slightly," she admitted with a small smile. "Here." She placed the antibiotic between his lips and held the water for him as he drank. Her hand lingered on his face, her fingers brushing lightly across his beard. "This will have to go," she murmured.

"You don't like it?" His hand caught hers and he moved her fingers to his lips.

"No." She leaned forward to kiss him properly. When she finally let him go, he collapsed back against the pillows, his breathing ragged. She kept her face close to his. "Merry Christmas."

"Christmas? Today?"

"According to John."

He licked his lips; she was wearing lip balm and they tasted of strawberries. "Thanks for getting me out of there, Sarah."

He felt her hand on his cheek as his eyes closed.

"Yeah, well, I think I might've owed you one…"


	8. Chapter 8

Sitting on the sofa, a blanket over her knees and the fire crackling brightly, Sarah was half-drowsing when John set the tray on her lap.

"Okay, so it's not quite turkey with all the trimmings."

It wasn't even close, but the smell of the mac and cheese made her mouth water regardless. They ate without speaking, the only noise the occasional sound of frustration she made when her spoon slipped from her hand. It was the first solid food she had eaten in days, and she only managed half the bowl before she had to admit defeat. Leaning back, she shook her head in mock despair as her son cheerfully ensured that nothing was wasted.

He cleared the dishes and returned with coffee and small Hershey bars, pulling his knees close to his chest as he sat back down. Taking note of his body language, she sipped her coffee and waited to see whether or not he would talk. With John, she was never entirely sure which way he would go.

The wrapper in his hand crinkled as he toyed with it. Eventually, he set the bar down unopened.

"Do you love him?" he asked quietly. His chin resting on his knees, he stared straight into the flames, but she could see the muscle in his jaw clenching as he waited for her to answer.

She didn't wonder how he had found out; she was more surprised at her relief that he had.

"Mom?"

She expected anger when he turned to look at her, but tears were brimming in his eyes. She touched his cheek gently.

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I never… That's never really been an issue." Taking a breath, she tried again, working it out for herself as she did. "It's different from Charley."

With Charley there had been a ring, and steady employment, and John had gone to school like a normal kid. And it could never last because it never did and the façade would inevitably crumble.

"Derek knows my name." It was simple, really, when she thought about it. "He knows everything. And he'd die for you."

John nodded. That much he understood. "You could've told me, mom."

"I know."

She wasn't sure why she hadn't done so, in the relative calm of the desert safe-house. When Kaliba had forced them to run, trying to stay alive had taken precedence, and she had been too afraid of risking another rift with her son to broach the subject.

"I'm sorry," she said. She was still so afraid of losing him.

Dropping his knees down, he inched closer to her. "I think I get it, really."

"Yeah?" She choked, caught between laughing and crying. "I'm not sure I do."

He gave a helpless laugh, and when she wrapped her arms around him he leaned easily into her embrace. He wasn't certain that he really did understand, but he understood his mother's reluctance to tell him about it. In the aftermath of Sarkissian, it had taken a long time for them to tentatively rebuild their relationship. The petulant little shit who had taken his own guilt and torment out on her was not someone he was proud of or willing to go back to.

"Mom, you okay?" He could feel her heart hammering in her chest and she was breathing too quickly. Inwardly he cursed himself for pushing her. It had been too soon, when she had spent all day pushing herself.

"I'm good. Are we okay?"

"Yeah, if you'll make me a promise."

Her voice was wary when she answered him. "What promise?"

"This dying-for-me business," he said, the words half-muffled by her sweater. "Think you could both give it a rest for a while? I believe you. You don't need to try to keep proving the point."

She did cry then, tightening her hold and forcing her fingers to bend and grip onto him. It was a long time before either of them let go.

. . . . .

There would be another scar. This one too would be jagged and sunken, though not as noticeable as her first. Reaching out to trace the edges of the old shrapnel wound, Sarah made a soft noise of surprise: that one really was her first. There had been so many since then that she had stopped trying to keep them in order.

"Did I hurt you?" Cameron hesitated with a fresh dressing in her hands. The wound from the explosion was healing cleanly, and up until that point Sarah had been lying quietly while Cameron had removed the sutures.

"No, it's fine." Sarah studied the machine. If she had believed it possible, she would have said that Cameron was nervous.

When the dressing had been taped into place, Sarah pulled up her sweatpants and then carefully dropped her feet to the floor. She made as if to stand; Cameron moved to help her, but both seemed to reconsider at the same time. Sarah stayed where she was, perched on the edge of the bed while Cameron waited expectantly in the silence.

Letting out a breath, Sarah ran both hands over her face.

"I don't know what to do with you," she said finally. "You broke the promise you made me, but you saved our lives. It makes things…"

"Complicated?" Cameron offered, trying to be helpful.

"Yeah, well, I was going to go with confusing."

"Oh."

"Complicated works, though." It was largely the reason that Sarah hadn't raised the point until now. For days, the fever and the pain medication had conspired to keep her thoughts muddled. Despite her recovery, she still wasn't sure she had arrived at a satisfactory solution.

"You're concerned for John's safety," Cameron said cautiously. "But we're all a threat to him." Her voice was gentle. She was well aware that she was walking a fine line. "He loves you. That makes him vulnerable. If I hadn't gone with him, he would have left me behind and gone anyway."

Sarah's face was pale and her fingers were white where they clutched at the bedding. The machine's words were scraping along the edge of a very raw nerve.

"You think John would be safer alone?" It wasn't an accusation, and it was nothing that Sarah hadn't already considered a thousand times over.

"Perhaps." Cameron held Sarah's gaze. "But there is more at stake than just his safety."

The inference was left hanging, and Sarah glimpsed another crack in the mystery that surrounded the machine's mission.

"Is that why you helped him to come and find us?" Sarah swallowed hard, but the words still choked her. "Is that why we jumped over my death?"

Cameron's face gave nothing away, but when she spoke her voice was tinged with regret. "My John forgot what he was fighting for. Your John still has you."

Derek had once said something similar to Sarah, but she had never truly grasped the implications until that moment. She felt hopeful and terrified simultaneously, and it made her light-headed.

"Sarah?"

She started when she felt Cameron's touch on her arm. "I'm fine," she said automatically.

"You may be about to pass out. You're very pale."

"I'm not going to pass out."

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

Sarah looked up at Cameron and shook her head with a faint smile. "No, thank you."

"Have we resolved our issues?" Cameron sounded as disorientated as Sarah felt.

"No. Yes." Frustrated, Sarah opted for the middle-ground. "I'm not actually sure."

Cameron picked up the bag of soiled dressings from the bed. "John is nearly eighteen," she said. "He made sound decisions based on logic and not merely emotion. He led, and expected me to follow. He brought you both home." With her hand on the door, she paused. "I would be proud."

She watched Sarah as her words sank in. Then, considering herself dismissed, she left the room without waiting for a response, something for which Sarah was profoundly grateful.

Sarah's fingers began to cramp. She unwound them from the blankets and rested her hands in her lap.

Although her son was not yet the John Connor who would lead the Resistance against Skynet, he was certainly showing promise. She had always been proud of him, and he had saved her life and Derek's.

She looked down at her hands, hands that had held onto John so tightly for almost eighteen years, and, even though the thought made her guts twist and her palms sweat, she knew it was time that she opened them a little.

. . . . .

Sitting in the living room with half of their weaponry and several cases of ammunition strewn across the floor, Sarah felt her mood brighten with each picture she clicked on. The beach on the lap-top screen was deserted, the sands golden and untouched. The sea was crystal clear and the average temperature for early January a pleasant 70°F.

John had rented the cabana without telling her. He knew they were heading back to Los Angeles and that Danny Dyson was still at large, remaining a major threat. That they would continue to pursue Dyson and find the company that Carey had named as a link to Skynet was not a matter for debate. The time-table for such an operation most definitely was. Cameron seemed certain that their destruction of Deacon and all of its research had given them a little breathing space. Taking her at her word, John had decided that a period of recuperation was essential. There had been no arguing with him, and when he had shown her the website Sarah hadn't even tried. The beach really did look beautiful.

A bang in the kitchen, followed by a crash and an uncharacteristic string of curses from Cameron, made Sarah look up. The machine retrieved the cans of food that had rolled across the floor and stacked them back into the cardboard box.

"The kitchen is clear." Cameron strode over to the sofa with the box in her arms. "I have the perimeter to disarm, which should take approximately three hours and forty minutes."

Sarah tried not to smile at how specific Cameron's approximation was.

There was a sudden blast of cold air as John opened the front door and stomped his boots off.

"That the last one?" He took the box from Cameron.

"Yes."

"Mom, I'm gonna go help with the perimeter. You need anything?"

Sarah looked over the back of the sofa and shook her head. "We're good, thanks."

He kissed the top of her head and then went out of the door with his load.

"Cameron…" Sarah's voice held a notable tone of warning.

"I know. We'll be careful."

With a nod of acknowledgement, Sarah returned her attention to the lap-top. Tucking her legs beneath her, she drew the blanket closer and shut her eyes as peace descended on the cabin.

Minutes later, she heard the click of the bedroom door and slow, unsteady footsteps. The sofa dipped slightly as Derek sat beside her. Without opening her eyes, she reached for his hand.

"Hey."

"Thought you were asleep."

"No." She turned to face him. "Just resting my eyes." Her free hand smoothed across his freshly-shaven cheek. "That's an improvement."

"Yeah? Took me long enough." Like her, Derek had been having problems with his dexterity, and several places on his chin oozed blood. He looked around the room, suddenly conscious of its emptiness.

"We alone?"

"For the next three hours and…" she checked her watch, "…thirty-two minutes."

Slightly bemused, he laughed anyway, and then cupped her face and kissed her. His tongue touched the tip of hers lightly, just before he broke away and leaned his head back against the sofa. They were both breathless and dizzy, and that was about as adventurous as they were going to get.

"Rain-check?" He rolled his head towards her, which did nothing to ease his dizziness.

"Rain-check," she agreed, and then started to laugh, her hand covering her eyes in exasperation. "What a waste of an opportunity."

"Yeah," he shrugged. "But it takes me half an hour to undress myself."

"And then you fall asleep." She was still laughing.

He grinned at her. "Connor, we are a fucking sorry pair."

"But at least we're alive."

He gripped her hand as tightly as he could. "Yeah, at least we're alive."

. . . . .

Derek was only aware of having dozed off when he woke an hour later. His head was propped on a pillow and a throw was pulled up to his chin. The cabin was quiet. John and Cameron were still not due back, and there was no sign of Sarah.

He found her on the porch bench. Curled beneath several layers of blankets, she was staring at the glaciers threading their way down the mountains. She didn't react to his presence, and as he studied her he realized that she wasn't really looking at anything at all. She had two pairs of gloves on, but was managing to hold onto the photograph so tightly it was creasing. When he gently manipulated it from her fingers, she shifted the blankets and made room for him to sit beside her.

"He's not on there," she said.

"No." They had had this discussion around the dinner table only the night before.

"The other two are, but there's no mention of Dyson."

Derek read and reread the names on the photograph of the bloodied wall. Wallace and Brooks, the two employees from Deacon who had fled with Danny Dyson, were both listed, but Dyson was nowhere to be found.

"If he was leading the project, why isn't he on there?"

Derek could hear the tiny glimmer of hope in her voice. Despite the fact that Dyson had been complicit in their torture and was obviously a threat to her son, she was still clinging to the faint chance that he was redeemable.

"I don't know, Sarah." Derek shared none of her optimism. For him, there were no gray areas. Dyson was working with Skynet, which made him the enemy.

"He's barely older than John." She couldn't remember everything about the time she had spent at Carey's mercy, and she considered that a blessing, but she remembered the expression on Dyson's face when he had lifted her head. "He didn't know that they had murdered his mother. Miles and Tarissa, they were good people, Derek."

"But Danny lost his father, and he saw things as a kid that obviously fucked him up."

She was staring at the mountains again, and when he gently turned her face towards him her eyes were full of tears.

"That was my fault," she whispered. The tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. "How the fuck can we ever stop this? I go to Miles Dyson and we burn everything, but I change his son's fate and it just starts all over."

Derek had no words of encouragement or even consolation, and he knew she wouldn't appreciate trite sentiment anyway. When he pulled her into his arms, she leaned into him. Her breathing shuddered quickly against his cheek, before she made it slower and steadier with a deliberate effort. She straightened slightly, but stayed close to him, and wiped her face dry. They sat together in comfortable silence, watching the storm clouds from the next valley boil over the mountain tops and gradually blot out the sun.

. . . . .

With a twist of the combination, Sarah locked the cabin's front door key into its safe, and turned to take one final look at the mountains. Derek was already leaning on the porch rail; he smiled at her as she came to stand by his side.

"John's losing." He nodded down towards the clearing below the porch, and she watched her son as he attempted to sprint for shelter. He managed four steps before Cameron unleashed her snowball, hitting him square in the butt and throwing him face-forwards into the snow.

"He taught her that?" Sarah shook her head in despair.

"Yeah. Guess he forgot about the unfair advantages that come from her being a machine."

John was laughing. His face was bright pink and snow clung to his coat and pants, but his laughter was full-throated and utterly carefree. Sarah tried but couldn't remember the last time she had heard that.

"Good to go?" Derek asked quietly.

She nodded with some reluctance, even though the cold was making her hands ache. It was getting easier for her to walk in her heavy winter boots, but she took hold of the arm he offered anyway. Beside the Jeep, John was shaking snow out of his hair; he opened the back door as they approached. The engine was already running. She sighed contentedly as she slid onto the seat, the warm air beginning to ease the sting of the cold from her face.

Sitting patiently, Cameron waited behind the wheel until each of the doors had slammed shut, and then she pulled out smoothly onto the track.

. . . . .

The steady rumble of the tires on the highway had been enough to send Derek to sleep. He didn't stir when they crossed the state line, or when the deep snow that was heaped up against the roadside began to recede and then become slushier. In the front, John and Cameron had argued over radio stations, eventually coming to some agreement, and Cameron was singing along to a song Sarah didn't recognize.

The first blades of grass peeking out from the thin covering of snow made Sarah smile. It seemed like months had passed since she had seen any color other than varying shades of white and blue. She listened to her son laugh as Cameron unintentionally mangled the lyrics to another song, setting off a further round of radio station wrangling. She looked out of the window and left them to it.

"Are we there yet?"

She turned her head towards Derek, who was staring in confusion at the landscape. It had been thick with snow when he had closed his eyes.

"No." They were nowhere near. "Go back to sleep. I'll wake you when I see the ocean."

He nodded slowly but kept his eyes open, deep in sleep-addled thought. Something occurred to him that made his eyes widen, and he fixed her with a lazy smile.

"You swim, Connor?"

"Yeah." She gave him a puzzled look. "I swim. Why?"

"Where the hell you hide your Glock in a swimsuit?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

He let out a surprised bark of laughter, and his hand flew to his chest as his ribs protested.

"You asked for that," she said with a grin, her tone entirely unsympathetic.

Still laughing, he leaned his head back against the seat and watched the deserted highway pass by in a blur. He decided it would be in his best interest to change the subject, and nodded towards the thermometer on the dash. "Warmer already."

The numbers had been climbing gradually. Sarah lowered her window, lifting her head into the pine-scented breeze and feeling the sun's warmth for the first time in weeks. In her pocket, her fingers touched the edge of a photograph, but she left it where it was, hidden away, and laid her hand deliberately back on the seat. Not now. Not yet.

She felt a hand close over hers and realized only then that her fist was clenched. When she turned away from the window, Derek was watching her.

"You okay, Sarah?"

"I'm fine," she said honestly.

"Yeah?" He still looked worried.

"Yes."

Oblivious to the exchange, her son leaned over his seat. "Mom, can we stop for burgers? I'm starving and I ate all the Cheesy Snax." He tipped the empty bag upside down as if to prove his predicament.

"Sure, we can stop."

He smiled hugely at her, and for a heartbeat Sarah was just a mom, her son a normal seventeen-year-old who craved junk food and bad rock music.

When they pulled into the diner, Cameron stalked along, ever watchful, at John's side as he went to collect their food, and reality crashed back into place. Sarah's hand tightened around her Glock as she scanned the parking lot for any sign of trouble. To her left, without prompting, Derek was doing the same.

This is how it goes, Sarah thought. This is how it will continue. This is our life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N. Just a very quick but heartfelt thanks to everyone who's taken the time to leave feedback, comments and even the occasional threat ;-) It's certainly no hardship writing these, but it's always a pleasure to know that people are enjoying reading them.


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